


Such Sinister Happenings at Malory Towers

by Cookies_and_Chaos



Category: Malory Towers - Enid Blyton, Murder Most Unladylike Series - Robin Stevens
Genre: Crossover, Gen, Minor Canonical Character(s), Original Character(s)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-27
Updated: 2021-02-19
Packaged: 2021-03-01 02:00:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 20
Words: 32,280
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23357407
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cookies_and_Chaos/pseuds/Cookies_and_Chaos
Summary: It was supposed to be a straight-forward school exchange but trouble seems to follow Hazel and Daisy wherever they might go, and Alicia is more than happy to drag the Third Formers into the mess as well. It all started when Daisy and Hazel recognised a certain teacher... (Some spoilers for MMU books prior to Death Sets Sail)
Comments: 27
Kudos: 48





	1. A Long Morning (MMU)

**Author's Note:**

> Alternating chapters in the (attempted) style of Murder Most Unladylike and Malory Towers.
> 
> Spoilers for MMU books prior to Death Sets Sail. Please check individual chapters for Content Warnings.

In hindsight, it was a good thing I took notes for our school exchange or we would have missed a lot of the early details. 

Of course, Daisy insisted that she had noticed them and realised they were peculiar and said she would have remembered them. Some things simply aren't worth arguing over. Choosing where to start writing about this was much trickier than usual, so in the end I just decided to start from the first day of our exchange. Daisy rolled her eyes at this and said that yet again I had started with details no-one was interested in. 

The Detective Society — Daisy, Myself, Lavinia, Kitty and Beanie — left Deepdean before any of the other girls were awake. Not for any kind of Detective business for once, for our school exchange. 

Daisy had complained about it nonstop (though she said that was an exaggeration on my part) since Miss Bernard announced that our dorm would be swapping places with girls from another boarding school. Daisy was very put out that she should be shunted to any other school, though I suspected that the teachers were rather more pleased than she was. 

Still, it was organised and there was nothing that Daisy could do apart from complain. Which she did. A lot. Until Lavinia threatened to smother her with a pillow. Anyway, on that early morning, all five of us stumbled out of Deepdean School for Girls and onto the minibus outside, accompanied by Miss Cunningham, Matron's new assistant. 

By the afternoon, my brain was fried. Not literally, of course, because that would have been horrid. It had been a long journey. An hour to the station, five hours on the train, then another hour on this minibus, and all the while Daisy had insisted we continue to hone our detective skills. Which was jolly difficult to do when it was just so unbearably hot. 

"You've forgotten one, start again," Daisy said. We were up to a list of nearly fifty objects to remember in order and it was pushing the limits of everyone's memory to try and recall them all and think of new ones to add. Even Daisy had faltered for just a moment in her last turn, though I knew she would never admit it. 

"Give it a rest, Daisy." Lavinia groaned from across the aisle. "It's a wonder Hazel's never _throttled_ you".

Which, as was to be expected, Daisy responded to with self righteous indignation, but it did make her quieten down. My heart sank because it was just more proof that she had lost something in recently months, a part of her that made her so _Daisy_. I had often thought I would prefer it if Daisy had her corners rubbed off a bit but I'm quickly finding that isn't the case. Daisy but less-Daisy wasn't the person I became friends with two years ago. 

"You'll see the school soon," the driver called from the front. "Move around to the left if you want a good first look. It's something, let me tell you!"

Daisy rolled her eyes. We had already heard that Malory Towers looked like a castle on the cliff tops and Daisy had immediately decided that that was simply too twee for words. I privately thought that given the high and mighty opinion Daisy had of herself at times (okay, all the time), she would be a bit more excited. 

Still, despite her protests, I did see Daisy's face come over with the same look of amazement as everyone else. Beanie's mouth was practically hanging open.

"I'd much rather be coming here than Deepdean," Kitty said.

Daisy ruffled and I knew she was about to defend her school (and Daisy really did think of the school as hers, each term I half expected to hear that Daisy had managed to swindle her way into having the land ownership transferred to her), but then the minibus took a sharp turn and everyone was thrown back into their seats.

"Not long now," I said, still looking up at the school as I spoke. It really did look much nicer than Deepdean, but looks could be ever so deceiving. 


	2. A Surprise Meeting (MT)

"Is that them?" Alicia said, her keen eyes spotting the bus before the rest of them. The girls bundled around the window to get a look, with varying degrees of success.

"Looks like it," Darrell agreed as she ducked back out from the crowd of girls.

"Oh, I do hope they're nice," Mary-Lou said, wriggling out herself. She was still the smallest in the form by rather a lot and it was so easy for her to get squashed.

"Well I heard many of the girls at that school are the daughters of proper Lords and Ladies," Gwendoline said. From the way she tossed her hair over her shoulder, everyone knew she felt she would fit in with them.

"Wonderful, a whole class of Gwens." Belinda muttered to herself as she sketched the scene of the bus winding its way up to the school. Darrell covered up her chuckle with a cough and looked away as Gwen narrowed her eyes. She hadn't heard Belinda but she was always convinced that any and all whispering was about her.

Which was fair this time, since it was.

"Are we meant to go down and meet them?" Sally asked, as always more interested in practicalities than opportunities to take a dig at Gwen.

"They're going to the West Tower dorm so won't some of the West Tower girls be meeting them?" Darrell asked.

"Well, we can't let them have all the fun," Alicia said. She jumped down from the windowsill and nearly knocked Daphne over in the process. "Besides, they're our age and you know that the older girls won't be interested in spending time with them."

Darrell thought that it was probably more likely that Alicia considered herself something of a resident of both North and West Tower, courtesy of her friendship with Betty Hill. With Betty and the rest of her dorm off at this other school as part of the exchange, Alicia would be desperate to see who Malory Towers had gotten in return.

"Come on!" Alicia grabbed Darrell's arm and pulled her.

Darrell offered an apologetic smile to Sally who waved it off and rolled her eyes. Darrell had to admit that she was almost as curious as Alicia about their exchange students.

Darrell nearly stumbled over as Alicia dragged her out of the main doors just as the bus pulled up, righting herself in time to avoid falling on her face. 

"I've never seen you so eager to help with a school exchange," Miss Potts commented dryly. Darrell blushed while Alicia just looked back at their teacher innocently.

"I'm awfully helpful," Alicia said. "Golly, is there only five of them? In exchange for our ten? I think their school got shortchanged."

Miss Potts raised an eyebrow at Alicia's cheek but didn't say anything, instead she stepped forward and greeted the five girls and their escort. 

"Welcome to Malory Towers," Miss Potts smiled warmly, "I do hope your journey was good?"

As the adults exchanged pleasantries, the students scrutinised one another. Darrell squirmed under the inspection of one particular girl — a tall, pretty, blonde girl — and felt sufficiently scruffy that she lowered her gaze to the floor. Alicia, of course, looked all five girls straight in the eye without shame. 

"Alicia, Darrell? Since you're here, if you could show the girls to the West Tower dorm?" Miss Potts asked. Alicia nodded and gestured for the five girls to follow.

"The school's divided into four towers, North, South, East and West," Alicia did what she did best in these situations and talked. "We're in the North and—"

"Hazel?" Mary-Lou had never, in the whole time Darrell had known her, jumped in and interrupted a conversation like that.

Darrell looked around and saw one of the girls, a short Asian girl, wriggle out from between two of the others.

"Mary-Lou? This is your school?" 


	3. No-one is sleeping by the window tonight (MMU)

"Hazel? Who's this?"

"Mary-Lou, you _know_ her?"

I blushed as Daisy and the girl from Malory Towers showing us around spoke at the same time, both with the same tone of disbelief. 

"Hallo Hazel," Mary-Lou had gone bright red too. She waved shyly at me and I smiled back with my own hesitant wave.

"Come on Hazel, introductions if you will?" Daisy elbowed me quite hard and I glared at her. She pointedly ignored my glare and nodded towards Mary-Lou.

"Perhaps we should get up to the dorms and then make introductions all at once?" a girl with a broad Scottish accent took control of the situation and raised her eyebrow at the girl who had been showing us around. "Rather than stand around in the middle of the hallway?"

"Oh, very well. If we must." Daisy sighed and we all traipsed up the stairs to the third floor and the dorm. The girls from Malory Towers were whispering among themselves and I could see Daisy trying to work out if any of them were talking about her. I was dreading the possibility that they were talking about me.

"This is you," the Scottish girl pushed a door open and we all bundled in.

Ten beds were lined up, five on either side of the room, made up neatly with blankets and eiderdowns. At one end of the room were the sinks and the entrance to the showers beyond that. All of the bedside tables were empty, obviously the girls who had been here before had tidied everything away. I couldn't remember if I had accidentally left any of my belongings at Deepdean and I felt a peculiar (and slightly silly) sensation of panic.

"Look! None of us shall need to sleep by the window," Kitty said gleefully as she jumped onto one of the beds. Beanie practically fell over her feet and onto hers and I stifled a smile as Daisy sighed dramatically beside me.

"Really, no sense of decorum at all, and in front of these girls," Daisy grumbled. I carried my luggage over to one of the beds. I could have been a bit petty and chosen the one at the end between the wall and Beanie but Daisy would only have made Beanie or I move so I decided it was more trouble than it was worth.

"You assured us introductions?" Daisy turned to the Scottish girl after placing her case at the foot of her bed. Daisy, of course, introduced us all and I saw one of the Malory Towers' girls eyes light up when Daisy emphasised the Honourable part of her name. I had hoped girls having ridiculous pashes on Daisy might have been left at Deepdean.

The Scottish girl, Jean, introduced the Malory Towers girls and my brain got in rather a muddle remembering them all. Daisy guessed this I think because she gave me a pitying look but I knew I would remember them all soon enough. 

"We'll leave you to get unpacked, then you can come outside and we'll show you around," Jean offered. Daisy inclined her head in a show of gratitude, which was of course entirely for show because Daisy would have been much happier showing herself around. Then the Malory Towers girls left us to our unpacking. Daisy suddenly turned back around to face the door.

"Oh wait! Bother, they're gone," Daisy said. "Nevermind, you can tell us, Hazel. How did you meet Mary-Lou? Jean neglected to allow her the time to answer that question."

I lay back on my bed with my arms folded behind my head. "We met during the Summer hols last year, we had lunch together and we began writing to one another from time to time."

"Oh." I could tell Daisy was disappointed at how mundane my explanation was. "Well, I suppose that's nice..."

Kitty giggled from over on her bed, the way Daisy had said nice left no doubt that it was practically an insult. Of course, to Daisy, nice was boring and something ordinary people described things as. Daisy was not boring or ordinary, even if she was plenty of other things that I might not be quite brave enough to say just yet. I grinned at Kitty instead as Daisy set about unpacking her case.

This was going to be rather a long exchange...


	4. An Unappreciated Tour (MT)

Alicia grabbed Mary-Lou's arm before she could hurry off. "You owe us an explanation, how do you know Hazel?"

Mary Lou went brilliant red and shuffled a little closer to Daphne as the third form made their way back down the stairs and towards the doors to the courtyard.

"I met her a year or so ago and we had tea together," Mary-Lou explained, "then we wrote a few times but we both got rather busy and so we haven't for a while."

Alicia looked downcast that it was all so mundane and tedious, but something was ticking over in Darrell's memory. She was so focused on trying to remember what that she nearly missed the bottom step and ended up having to jump down to avoid looking the fool. Sally seemed to be the only one who noticed though and she just gave a small smile and a shake of her head.

"I remember now, the girl who told you her teacher was murdered?" Darrell asked as she pushed the door open and held it for the rest of them. "Of _course_ , I didn't recognise the name until now. Deepdean School for Girls!"

"Whatever do you mean?" Alicia's interest was piqued again and she skipped to the front of the group as they found somewhere to sit down. Irene stumbled over Belinda and they both ended up in an undignified pile on the grass but the rest of the class managed to sit themselves a little more sensibly.

"I didn't realise that I'd heard of them. They've had terribly bad luck actually," Darrell said, she frowned as she tried to remember all the details. "First one of their girls committed suicide, except it wasn't suicide at all it was murder I think. Or an accident, I can't remember. Then two teachers were killed and then the next year their head girl was murdered! I remember reading about it in the newspapers."

"Hazel said she and her friend helped solve the murder of the teachers," Mary-Lou jumped into the conversation, quite energised by being the girl who knew something the others didn't.

"Don't be ridiculous, they're only school girls," Alicia scoffed.

"How dreadful," Gwen said, "Father looked at Deepdean for me, don't you know, and Mother thought it would be rather more suited to my needs because it was where all the Lords were sending their daughters, but I'm quite glad Father chose here now."

Darrell caught Sally's eye, rolled her eyes and pulled a face. Sally tried her best not to react but her lips twitched with a grin. Even the mild-mannered Sally couldn't be sensible about Gwen _all_ of the time.

"Our loss is Deepdean's gain, I suppose," Alicia sighed. It took a moment for the swap in the phrase to sink in but when it did, Gwen glared at Alicia who resolutely avoided looking at her much to Gwen's irritation.

"Here they are," Alicia said as the five girls from Deepdean emerged from Malory Towers. She waved, a little unnecessarily since they were the only form sat as a whole in the courtyard area. Darrell watched as the blonde girl, Daisy, whispered something to Hazel and they seemed to have some kind of heated discussion before Hazel strode towards them with purpose.

"We'd like to take you up on that tour of the school, if you don't mind?" Hazel said.

"We needn't _all_ go, surely?" Daphne asked, quite enjoying the gentle sunshine. "I don't mind if you want to spend some time with Hazel, Mary-Lou."

Irene had a music lesson and Belinda wanted to spend a bit more time on a painting she had been working on. Bill, of course, made her apologies and hurried off down towards the stables to visit Thunder.

"I've got a meeting for the head of forms," Jean said, looking at her watch. "Tell you what, you four," — and she gestured at Mary-Lou, Alicia, Sally and Darrell — "go and show them around and we'll all meet up later in the common room. How does that sound?"

"I don't particularly need showing around," Daisy said but a sharp elbow from Hazel stopped her saying any more.

Alicia, of course, took the lead and none of the other girls were much inclined to challenge her on it. Mary-Lou walked alongside Hazel, offering quiet asides to provide context to some of Alicia's more outlandish and creative descriptions. Such as corrections to the story of the feud between Mam'zelles Dupont and Rougier that Alicia told.

"They nearly came to blows in class that term," Alicia finished after that had passed the Mam'zelles talking in one of the classrooms.

"They really didn't," Mary-Lou whispered to Hazel, "Actually, they mostly ignored one another."

"And Alicia managed to forget her particular role in the cartoons ending up in Mam'zelle Rougier's hands," Sally added lowly, too quiet for any of the Deepdean Girls to hear. Darrell bumped her gently with her elbow, perhaps unnecessarily as Sally would voice her annoyance with Alicia with Darrell but she was hardly one to air a girl's past in front of guests to the school.

Darrell glanced around to find the fifth member of Deepdean. Hazel was with Mary-Lou, and Kitty, Beanie and Lavinia were all listening to Alicia quite keenly — even if Lavinia was trying to pretend she wasn't. So that left Daisy. Darrell checked over her shoulder and found the other girl walking a step behind, quite separated from her school friends. There was a small scowl on her face as she looked over towards Hazel and Mary-Lou, though she was quick to cover it up when she saw Darrell watching her. Then her expression changed again and she didn't try to hide this one; in fact, the surprise that covered her face was so immediate, Darrell wasn't sure she could have if she wanted to.

"Steady on there, Darrell!" Miss Parker's voice interrupted Darrell's thoughts and Darrell faced forward just in time to avoid crashing straight into the second form teacher.

"Sorry, Miss Parker." Darrell rubbed the back of her neck as she stepped to one side and let her old teacher pass.

"Do watch where you're going," Miss Parker said, softening her words with a smile.

"Yes, Miss," Darrell said but her attention was back on Daisy, who watched Miss Parker walk down the corridor with the most peculiar expression.

Whatever was all that about?


	5. A Familiar Face (MMU)

I recognised her a split second before Daisy jabbed me — rather painfully actually — in the ribs with her forefinger. I hadn't even noticed her move around to stand with me.

"Watson," she whispered. I nodded to show that I had recognised the teacher as well.

"What did you call her?" Alicia seemed almost as observant as Daisy and I, and she jumped on the nickname immediately even though I would have sworn Daisy only spoke loud enough for me to hear. "Did you say, Watson?"

"As in Sherlock Holmes and Watson?" that was Darrell. I remembered her name because Mary-Lou had mentioned her a few times in her letters and seemed rather fond of her.

"It's just what Daisy calls me sometimes," I explained, feeling a little foolish and childish saying it out loud.

"Oh! Because you solve crimes?" Darrell asked. "Do you call her Sherlock?"

"Of course she doesn't," Daisy said, as though the very idea were ridiculous. It wasn't Darrell's fault, she wasn't to know that Daisy thought herself even more marvellous than Sherlock Holmes himself, after all.

"What were you whispering about anyway?" Alicia asked, looking around, and Daisy gave me such a ferocious look that I shut my mouth tightly and said nothing.

"Thanks awfully for the tour." Daisy smiled. "You're welcome to keep showing the others around but Hazel and I have something we need to attend to". If you didn't know Daisy had just arrived that morning, you would have been certain she was a regular student.

Before anyone could protest, Daisy had taken my hand and dragged me back towards the main building of Malory Towers. 

"You're being ridiculous," I complained as Daisy hauled me inside the building in a most undignified manner.

"I've told you that I'm not altogether fond of this new outspoken Hazel." Daisy looked around. "Oh blow, I don't know where any of the good hiding spots are".

"Maybe if we'd finished the tour..." I said and Daisy narrowed her eyes at me.

"We shall have to make do with the dorm I suppose, come _on_ Watson." With that, Daisy ran over to the stairs and up them.

In a somewhat immature act of defiance, I followed at a more sedate pace. I passed a few Malory Towers' students on the way and tried to ignore the double-takes. It was the same each time I went somewhere new, I had to endure that particular plaster being torn off all over again. By the time I reached the dorms, Daisy was pacing back and forth inside.

"Did you bring a case book?" Daisy asked. "Never mind, of course you will have. Get it out and let's get started."

I _had_ brought a notebook for a new case. I always had one with me. However, I didn't hurry to get it out of my suitcase.

"It's not really any sort of mystery yet, Daisy," I said, "maybe we should find out a little bit more before we start?"

"We were told Miss Parker went to work at a school in London after Miss Griffin was arrested. This isn't London," Daisy said firmly, as though that were all the proof we needed to assume the very worst about our old teacher.

"Maybe she just changed her mind," I argued, "or perhaps Malory Towers pays better than the other school."

Perhaps I was being overly stubborn about it; I too was interested as to why Miss Parker had ended up down here as well, but it also didn't make sense to use a completely new case book for a matter that might be resolved with the line _'Miss Parker decided she didn't like London and took a different job'_.

"I suppose the best approach would be to find out when she joined the school and what Miss Parker has revealed about herself here." Daisy only faltered for a moment before regaining her stride.

"We might have had an easier time doing that if we hadn't run away from Mary-Lou and the others. They could tell us, I'm sure, but now we look awfully peculiar and they'll be suspicious about it." I pointed out, not bothering to be delicate.

Daisy pursed her lips and looked back at the door. It had been strange, now that I thought about it. Normally, Daisy would have jumped at the chance to begin drilling Alicia and the others for more information yet she had dragged me away, made quite the scene, and left Kitty and the others with the opportunity to quiz the Malory Towers girls about Miss Parker. If any of them had recognised her, that was. In fact, when I put it all together, it was so unlike my best friend that I had to wonder why she had done it.

"I suppose we should go back and find them..." Daisy said. "Perhaps you could spend some time with Mary-Lou and get some information while I talk to the others."

The slightly sharp tone on Mary-Lou's name made something click into place in my brain and, before I could stop myself, I started to ask, "Daisy! Did you drag me off because you were—"

"I didn't _drag_ you off, stop being so ridiculous." Daisy cut me off and I suspected she had a very good idea what my question was going to be. "Now, we were past the entrance hall when we left them so by my estimates, they will be headed down towards the playing fields. We saw them on the way in."

Daisy ran back off towards the stairs and I followed with a bit more vigour this time, vindicated by the fact that I had a good idea of what was causing Daisy's odd behaviour. Daisy was right — infuriatingly, when she's not distracted by pesky emotions she usually is — and we caught up with the girls as they headed down to the fields.

"Finish with your secret meeting already?" Alicia asked when we caught up with them.

Daisy went a touch rosy in the cheeks but held her head up high, "It didn't take as long as expected."

I fell back in step with Mary-Lou as Alicia teased Daisy some more. I could see that Daisy didn't appreciate it but Lavinia and Kitty quite enjoyed seeing Daisy on the receiving end of some ribbing for a change.

"Do you play lacrosse at Deepdean?" Mary-Lou asked when Alicia pointed out the tennis courts and the lacrosse field.

"Only in lessons. I'm not very good," I said with a smile.

Mary-Lou linked arms with me and confessed that she wasn't very good at lacrosse either. At least for my stay at Malory Towers, I would have someone to stand and huddle near the goal with now that Lavinia had gone and gotten good at lacrosse. Alicia checked her watch and said she had one last place to show us. She led us down towards the sea before having us all stop abruptly and waved her hand out in a gesture towards the school's swimming pool.

Despite being someone who didn't really understand the girls who went running outside for sports in all weathers, I could appreciate the swimming pool at Malory Towers and I was surprised to see even Daisy looked impressed for the first time on the tour.

"Can we swim today?" Beanie asked, bobbing onto her tiptoes.

"It'll have to be tomorrow now, we have to go back up for tea," Alicia explained, "If you're half-mad like Darrell, you can get up before breakfast and go for a swim. I prefer the extra hour in bed."

Darrell didn't look at all bothered at being called half-mad and I got the feeling that this was just Alicia's way of speaking to everyone. Much like Daisy had her way of speaking to everyone. I wondered if people got as annoyed with Alicia and her ways as they did with Daisy.

"Let's go back up and meet up with the others before tea," Sally suggested, and Alicia led us all back towards the school.

As we walked, Daisy fell into step with me and lowered her voice to barely more than a murmur, "I don't mind getting up early to see what Darrell knows but you need to see what you can get out of Mary-Lou."

I opened my mouth to ask whether she was going to tell the others about Miss Parker and assign each of them another student to try and quiz about Miss Parker but I saw Darrell glanced over at us and decided to keep my mouth shut. Daisy had already made them all suspicious with her strange behaviour; I would have to wait until we went to bed for the evening.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies for the long delays on all my works, I have broken two fingers and this is slowing down my typing. Thank you for continuing to read despite the slower posting schedule.


	6. Rumours of Teachers Past (MT)

"They're a good laugh. Well, most of them," Alicia said while the third formers got ready for bed. "Lavinia has a wicked sense of humour."

"And I've never heard Mary-Lou talk so much," Belinda teased as Mary-Lou clambered into bed. "You let your tea go cold with all your talking."

"Hazel's really decent, and a wizard storyteller." Daphne distracted the conversation from her blushing friend. "I'm glad Miss Potts let them sit with us rather than over with West Tower."

"Daisy's a bit off though," Alicia added, glancing around to see who agreed with her. A few bobbing heads confirmed her suspicion that she wasn't the only one who'd noticed.

"Maybe she's homesick?" Jean suggested. "Or school-sick I suppose you might call it."

" _Maybe_ she doesn't like Hazel talking so much with Mary-Lou," Alicia grinned wickedly, sitting on her bed. "A case of the green-eyed monster."

"She was acting peculiarly after we bumped into Miss Parker," Darrell added as she returned from brushing her teeth.

"After you bumped into her, you mean," Alicia said and Darrell half-heartedly swatted her on the shoulder. 

"I'm serious. She had this odd look, as though maybe she knew her? Then she ran off with Hazel," Darrell explained, dropping down onto her own bed and quickly running a brush through her curls.

"Perhaps they do. Miss Parker did only join halfway through our first form," Jean said to Alicia, "remember? Before that, the second formers had that _dreadful_ teacher."

"Miss Ainsworth?", Irene snorted. "Gosh, I'd nearly managed to forget about her."

"She was before you joined," Alicia explained to Darrell and Sally. "We all think Miss Grayling fired her."

Footsteps coming down the corridor silenced their chatter and everyone scurried to their beds just as Matron opened the door and poked her head around.

"Lights out girls," she said, "sleep well."

Matron flicked the light switch and plunged the dorm into darkness. The third formers waited for the sound of Matron's footsteps to fade away and then promptly sat back up. Alicia turned on the small lamp at the end of the dorm near her bed and a soft glow gave them just enough light to see one another.

"Miss Ainsworth hit a girl, is what I heard," Irene whispered, "she was fierce enough."

"I don't think that's true..." Jean protested weakly, though she didn't sound entirely convinced herself.

"I heard she was caught trying to steal from Miss Grayling's office," Alicia added. 

"No-one _knows_ why she left and we don't all think she was fired." Jean aimed a pointed look at Alicia who just raised an eyebrow, unconvinced.

"But Miss Parker hasn't been here for long then?" Darrell brought the conversation back to what they had originally been discussing. "So Daisy and the others could know her? She could have worked at Deepdean before coming here?"

"Oh dear," the quiet that fell after Darrell's question meant Mary-Lou's words were heard by everyone.

"Oh dear, what?" Alicia swung her legs around and leant forward, resting her elbows on her knees.

"Well, just over a year and a half ago was when the first murder that Hazel and Daisy solved happened. The teachers who were murdered?" Mary-Lou explained, looking over at Daphne for reassurance.

"Well, _there's_ a reason to move to a new school if ever I heard one!" Alicia grinned. "We have to find out for certain if that's where she was, I wonder what she saw!"

"Why does it matter?" Jean protested, knowing that when Alicia got that wicked look in her eye it was almost impossible to get her to turn her attentions elsewhere.

"Jean's right, is it our business that she wanted to work somewhere else after going through that?" Sally asked.

"Tomorrow, we need to do some of our own investigating about Miss Parker." Alicia ignored both of them and turned to Darrell. "You'll help, won't you?"

Darrell looked between Alicia and Sally, then promptly lay down and pulled her duvet over her head.

"I'm going to sleep." Darrell's voice was muffled by the duvet.

"Oh come on!" Alicia laughed all the same and Jean shushed her.

"You're not doing anything tonight at any rate," Jean said firmly. She got up and walked over to turn the lamp off. "Now be quiet or you'll bring Matron back with all this noise."

Just as Jean reached out to turn the lamp off, Darrell pushed her duvet off and popped back up.

"Why don't we just ask Daisy or Hazel if they know Miss Parker? Why all the secrecy?" she asked.

"You have no sense of mystery do you?" Alicia sighed.

"Bed, and quiet." Jean turned the lamp off before Alicia could protest again. "And if you turn it back on again, Alicia, I'll put it in the hallway."

Jean walked carefully back to her own bed and got in. A few minutes of silence followed before Alicia spoke again,

"I bet some of them start asking _us_ questions tomorrow."

"Alicia!" Jean groaned, "Go to sleep."

"Alright, don't go up in smoke. Just you wait and see though. I bet I'm right."


	7. Detective Assignments and Late Night Escapades (MMU)

"Of course you can keep the windows closed," the Matron of West Tower said when Beanie asked, "though you might want some breeze with the nights getting warmer."

Beanie's face lit up and I thought for a moment she might hug the Matron.

"I'll be back in half an hour for lights out, no girl is out of bed without good reason after that," Matron warned and she gave Beanie one last bewildered look before leaving us to it.

"Are you going to tell us what you two have been scheming about?" Lavinia asked.

Daisy perched on the end of her bed and crossed her legs at the ankles. I knew she'd drag out telling them and we only had a short time so I started. "Daisy and I are planning to get to the bottom of why Miss Parker came here instead of the school in London."

Daisy sighed dramatically but I ignored her. 

"Miss Parker?" Lavinia asked, furrowing her brow.

"Oh my gosh!" Beanie bounced onto her bed on her knees. "The teacher Darrell nearly bumped into. I knew I recognised her. She's let her hair grow!"

Daisy looked surprised that it was Beanie who put things together the quickest but I just smiled. Beanie's brain worked differently to most other people's. Daisy didn't always appreciate that in others, though I suppose that's because she was wired differently to most people as well.

"Yes, exactly." Daisy recovered quickly. "She was going to a school in London. This most certainly is not London."

"It doesn't seem much of a mystery Daisy," Kitty said dubiously.

"She didn't say hello to any of us though," Beanie mused, trying to maneuver around to sit cross legged on her bed. Beanie was still getting used to her growth spurt and the longer limbs that came with it. Sometimes Kitty laughed fondly at her and said it was like watching a baby giraffe try to get up and down.

"That _is_ a little odd," Lavinia said, "all the teachers would be told about an exchange, right?"

"Maybe she didn't see us?" I suggested, the conversation was starting to snowball back towards jumping to conclusions.

"I was stood right beside Darrell." Daisy pointed out, and of course she would be outraged not to be seen, remembered, and acknowledged.

"Well, let's ask the third formers tomorrow," Beanie suggested.

"That was our plan," Daisy said firmly, "there's twice as many of them as us so we'll each take two."

"I'm sure just one—" Lavinia started but Daisy ploughed ahead anyway.

"Hazel, I suppose you should take Mary-Lou and her friend, Daphne." Daisy said. "Beanie, you take—"

"Could I..." Beanie trailed off at Daisy's unimpressed look over being interrupted. "Sorry. I was just thinking, Darrell invited me to go swimming first thing tomorrow and I think her friend is going as well, so I could ask them both?" 

Daisy didn't look happy at not making the assignment but she agreed. "Fine, fine. You take Darrell and Sally." Then Daisy hurried to assign the rest of us. Kitty was to speak to Irene and Belinda, Lavinia to Jean and Bill, while Daisy would talk to Alicia and Gwendoline.

"Right, now you should all make sure you get a good night's sleep," Daisy said, taking her washcloth and toothbrush from the side and heading towards the sinks.

"And what about you?" I asked, suspicious that Daisy had finished the meeting so abruptly. I grabbed my own wash-bag and followed Daisy.

"What are you up to?" I said.

Daisy conveniently decided to start brushing her teeth at that moment, leaving her unable to talk. I fumbled with my wash-bag and dropped half the contents into the sink. By the time I had collected them, then finished brushing my teeth and washing my face, Daisy was in bed with the duvet pulled up under her chin. I knew she wouldn't be going to sleep so I watched her suspiciously for a few seconds then decided I would pretend not to think anything was off. I chatted to the others until Matron came up for lights out. 

Just as I suspected, once the soft sounds of sleep from the other three girls were audible, Daisy slipped out from under her duvet and tiptoed to the door. I feigned sleep and listened to the door open and close softly, then I sat up. 

As much as I wanted to chase right after Daisy and demand to know what she was doing leaving me out of her plan, I counted to five. My detective skills had improved enormously over the years but sneaking about was not one of my better skills. I needed to give Daisy a small head start without losing her. I went without slippers, it was quite warm at Malory Towers and I worried that my slippers would make too much noise with their solid soles. I placed each step carefully and followed Daisy's path out the door. I could just make out a shadow turning left at the end of the corridor so I went that way. 

Feeling bold, I sped up near the corner and pressed myself to the wall to peer around. It was definitely Daisy, I could see her better now. She approached the stairwell and I was about to follow when the lights went on, leaving Daisy exposed with nowhere to hide. She jumped and I only just got my hand over my mouth in time to stifle my yelp of surprise.

"You're one of the Deepdean girls, what are you doing up?" Matron came into view and I ducked back around the corner so she wouldn't see me.

"Oh Matron, I'm so dreadfully sorry." Daisy slipped so easily into different masks and characters that sometimes it worried me. "I got turned around looking for the toilets, I suppose I must have been half asleep and still thinking I was at Deepdean."

I didn't know whether Matron would buy that, thought it did sound rather convincing in Daisy's syrupy innocent tones, so I hurried back to the dorms so that I too wouldn't be found out of bed. A short while after I had got back into bed, the door to the dorm opened and Daisy was ushered inside. Matron must have decided to escort her. 

Daisy sat down heavily on her bed and yanked her duvet up and over herself. I sighed to myself, she was going to be in a foul mood tomorrow. Still, I couldn't help wondering what she had been planning to do and decided that as well as asking Mary Lou and Daphne about Miss Parker, I would also be keeping a close eye on Daisy... 


	8. Who's questioning who? (MT)

"Morning!" Beanie was waiting for Darrell and Sally at the top of the stairs.

Darrell returned the greeting as enthusiastically and waved for Beanie to lead the way down the stairs. 

"And we won't get scolded for being out of bed too early?" Beanie asked.

"It's fine, as long as we're in uniform and presentable for breakfast, no-one shall mind," Sally reassured her.

They chatted away on their walk down to the pool. Or, rather, Darrell and Beanie did most of the chatting. Sally, not being as outgoing as Darrell, was happy to listen for the most part. 

"So they really are amateur detectives." Darrell marvelled as they reached the pool and set their towels down and took off their bathing robes. "It sounds so unbelievable."

"Sometimes it seems unbelievable while we're helping them." Beanie grinned as she adjusted her bathing cap. "Some of the things we've gotten up to..."

Beanie got a peculiar look on her face at that and smiled a little stiffly at Darrell and Sally, as though she were wondering if she had said too much. 

"Come on then," Darrell said and she led the way to jump into the pool.

Beanie hesitated and then followed Sally's lead of getting in a bit more carefully. The water was just cool enough that it made the girls gasp when they first got in but warmed enough to be quite lovely within a few minutes. Darrell swam a few lengths normally before diving underwater and disappearing from sight. 

"Is she likely to dunk us?" Beanie asked, looking around so that the other girl couldn't sneak up on her.

"Depends on what sort of mood she's in," Sally replied with a fond grin, "just watch your back is all."

Beanie squealed as Darrell splashed up out of the water beside her, then splashed an armful of water towards Darrell. 

"What are lessons like here?" Beanie asked once they'd settled down. 

"It depends how well you get on, I suppose." Darrell glanced at Sally for her input.

"Most of the teachers are good sorts but they work us hard, I expect they'll be a bit easier on you Deepdean girls to begin with," Sally added.

"Oh good." Beanie kicked her legs up and floated on her back for a few seconds before righting herself when she started to sink. "I get in an awful muddle in class sometimes and the teachers at Deepdean are strict. I thought they might be the same here when I saw Miss Parker had come here."

Darrell caught Sally's eye and raised her eyebrow. Sally nodded silently, not too proud to admit that Alicia had been right after all. And so soon as well!

"Yes, we noticed that Daisy looked rather shocked to see her yesterday," Darrell said.

"Well, we all thought she was going off to work in London so it was quite the surprise," Beanie said.

"Do you want to swim a little more? We only have a few more minutes if we're to shower before breakfast," Sally asked.

Darrell watched as Beanie floundered for a moment, unsure whether to swim or ask more questions. She shot an amused look at Sally and then took off to get a few more lengths swum. Once they had got out of the pool and were on their way back up to school, Darrell took pity on Beanie.

"Miss Parker joined Malory Towers about 18 months ago, so perhaps all didn't work out at this London school?" Darrell suggested, "Was she close with one of the teachers who died? Maybe that has something to do with it."

"Oh! Yes, her and Miss Bell were...um..." Beanie hesitated and bought herself some time by taking her bathing cap off and putting it into her robe pocket. "They were rather close at a time so perhaps you're right."

"Miss Parker's not a bad sort though," Darrell said, "I'm surprised you were worried about her being here. She was a bit nosy when we were in her form last year but not overly strict."

"Really? She used to get into these frightful tempers at Deepdean. We were all scared of them, she'd scream and her face would go all red." Beanie grimaced and then quickly finished. "I'm glad you say she's not like that now. Thanks awfully for inviting me to swim."

Beanie hurried off ahead of them and towards West Tower. 

"Who was quizzing who there?" Sally asked as she and Darrell made their way back up to the North Tower dorms.

"If they're going to be doing investigating, I don't see why we shouldn't." Darrell grinned. "I can't understand why they're so interested but it could be fun to find out the truth first. It is odd how different Miss Parker was when they knew her, right?"

"People change for all sorts of reasons and having your friend be murdered would change someone," Sally pointed out as they climbed the stairs back up to the dorm.

The rest of the form were just waking up when Darrell and Sally arrived in the dorm so they hurried to take a shower while the other girls set about their morning routines. 

"Beanie was asking questions about Miss Parker," Darrell said to Alicia when she returned to get dressed.

"Gosh, they got started quickly." Alicia finished tidying up her tunic and ran a brush through her hair. "Make sure you do a better job with your hair this time, Darrell."

Darrell blushed at the memory of the order mark and talking to she'd been given for presentation the last time she had gone swimming early.

"Do you think they'll ask the rest of you?" Darrell changed the subject as she dressed.

"Oh. I dare say we're all in for questions." Alicia looked rather gleeful over the idea. "It'll be quite exciting to see who quizzes who. Let's compare notes at lunchtime."

-

By the time they regrouped at lunchtime, only Alicia and Gwen hadn't been spoken to. Alicia took charge and asked the girls one by one what had been asked of them.

"By my estimates, Gwen and I are going to have a nice chat with Daisy sooner rather than later," Alicia said, "They are frightfully interested in what could turn out to be nothing more than a better job offer."

"Kitty let slip that Miss Parker had pretended not to know any of them, she did the same at break time too, did you see?" Belinda asked.

Miss Parker had been out walking in the courtyard when the Malory Towers girls had broken the news to the disappointed Deepdean girls that not only did they not have bun break at Malory Towers, none of them had ever heard of such a thing. They did agree, after Hazel and Beanie between them had forlornly explained that it was when cakes and biscuits were handed out during break-time, that it was a shame that Malory Towers didn't do bun breaks. In the middle of all this, Miss Parker had walked past them and it was almost as though she deliberately avoided looking at the Deepdean students.

"Beanie said that Miss Parker and Miss Bell, the teacher who died first, were close." Darrell walked back and forth as they talked. "And the way she described her makes her sound like a different woman."

"It must have been awful for her," Mary-Lou said, "imagine losing someone you care about like that."

The girls grew sombre for a few minutes, thinking on how true Mary-Lou's sentiment was.

"I say, I hope none of them goes and asks Miss Parker any questions." Jean voiced what a few of them were thinking. It had seemed exciting before, investigating a harmless mystery, but thinking about who was at the centre of it all and why she had moved in the first place made them all a little uncomfortable over how much of a game they were making of it.

"Well, I suspect the only one with the nerve to would be Daisy. If she's distracted by trying to get information out of me, maybe she'll forget for the time being." Alicia jumped up and dusted down her tunic. "I'll go and 'accidentally' find myself wherever Daisy is."

With one last grin, Alicia hurried off. 


	9. A Rather Tense Supper (MMU)

If there's one thing I've learnt in the years Daisy and I have been investigating, it's that once you start looking for things, you end up finding far more than you bargained for.

Daisy was in a funny mood when we went in for supper. Alicia had sought us out earlier in the day and it was painfully obvious that the third formers had both worked out that they were being questioned and about whom. That was the problem with investigations involving other schoolgirls, they tended to talk to one other.

Daisy wasn't pleased that not only did Alicia know what we were doing but that she also wasn't taking it all that seriously. I thought that it might just be how Alicia approached every situation. Nevertheless, Daisy wasn't keen on chatting over supper. Which hardly mattered as there was quite the air of excitement courtesy of the return of one of the class, Mavis Allyson.

"What did the doctor say?" Jean asked once the hellos were out of the way and Mavis had settled in at the table.

"He was pleased with my progress but says I've got a long way to go, I'm still not to do any singing," — Mavis paused mid-sentence and took a drink of water — "But Mr Young is going to do a few vocal exercises with me each week to see how I get on."

Mary-Lou lowered her voice and quietly explained to me that Mavis had once had a marvellous singing voice but had lost her voice after coming down terribly ill during a previous term. As Mary-Lou explained, I saw Gwendoline watching out of the corner of my eye and I raised my eyebrows at the peculiar look that came over her face. I didn't have much time to think about it though as the conversation around the table swiftly moved on and Mary-Lou and I returned our attention to the others.

"Oh, did you hear that Mr Young has a trainee teacher this term?" Mavis asked after a few minutes of talking, "I met him when I first came back, he was with Mr Young when my parents spoke to him."

"So _that's_ who was following him around earlier." Irene knocked Belinda's bread out of her hand as she gestured, sending the bread flying into Jean's lap. "During my lesson, he knocked my sheet music stand over just when I was getting to the complicated bit."

"He's made an enemy for life there," Alicia teased. 

"I simply can't _imagine_ how irritating it must be to have someone so clumsy around," Belinda muttered as she tried to help brush the butter and crumbs off of Jean's lap.

Irene ignored them both and turned to Mavis, "Did Mr Young say whether he would be involved in our lessons?"

"I think so, I heard Mr Gregory, that's the new teacher's name, saying he had to do a certain number of classes to finish his training," Mavis said, "and he'll be taking on some one-to-one sessions too."

"You know an awful lot about this new teacher for someone who is taking a rest from music lessons," Alicia said and I felt awfully sorry for Mavis, for her cheeks went crimson. 

"Oh, like that is it?" Lavinia grinned and all eyes were immediately on her. "This new teacher, is he younger than your Mr Young?"

Mavis cleared her throat and glanced around the table, "Well, yes, he is a trainee after all."

"And is he a rather a lot nicer to look at too?" Lavinia's eyes gleamed as she narrowed in on her point. Mavis clamped her mouth shut and Alicia burst out laughing.

"Girls! Where is all this excitement from? Quiet or Miss Potts will come over." Mam'zelle Dupont shushed the growing excitement around the table. "What has gotten into you?"

"Sorry Mam'zelle," Alicia said quickly and turned to Daisy instead. "Did you solve your little mystery then?"

Daisy glared at Alicia, truly a look that could have shrivelled a more timid girl into a whimpering mess. Alicia just smiled back.

"Alicia," Jean said, a warning to her voice that Alicia seemed to merrily ignore.

"Is Miss Parker a spy, perhaps? Maybe she's undercover," Alicia continued. Daisy's expression grew darker still.

"Alicia, what is this you say about Miss Parker?" Mam'zelle Dupont called, she must have caught a snippet of Alicia's comment and, really, whichever snippet it was must have sounded odd.

Before Alicia could answer, there was a commotion across the hall. It sounded like a sharp cry of dismay or alarm. I looked up in time to see the other French teacher hurrying out of the hall with one hand was covering her face as though she didn't want the girls to see her. 

"Oh no. Girls, I will return." With that, Mam'zelle Dupont was on her feet and rushing away too.

"Well, this is jolly exciting isn't it?" Alicia said. "There's another mystery for you, Daisy, the mystery of the disappearing Mam'zelles."

I truly thought Daisy might snap at that but before she could say anything, Darrell jumped in.

"Give it a rest, Alicia, would you? You're giving me a headache." Except Darrell didn't look like she had a headache and the words were delivered too good-naturedly for her to be being serious. It did quieten Alicia down though, which I was grateful for. Daisy can be quite awful when she's in a bad mood and I suspect anything she might have said would have led to the remainder of our exchange being horrid. I tried to get Daisy's attention and offer her a sympathetic smile but she steadfastly avoided my eye and I gave up in favour of enjoying my pudding. Malory Towers might not have bun breaks but their puddings were very good.

Daisy kept up her sullen routine as we all trailed up towards the common room, then all of a sudden said she was going to go and lie down as she didn't feel well and marched off towards West Tower instead. When I went to follow her, Kitty grabbed my arm. "Do leave her be, Hazel, she's been in a foul mood all day."

Though a part of me worried that Daisy would go off and do some investigating by herself, it didn't take much convincing for me to follow the others up to the common room. 

"So why are you all digging into Miss Parker's business anyway?" Alicia put a record on and turned the volume down so we could still talk. "Was she a suspect in the murder before?"

"For a while," I admitted. Mary-Lou and Daphne shuffled along the two-person seat to make space for me and I smiled gratefully. The rest of the girls found seats around the room in various places. Alicia jumped up and sat on top of of one the drawer sets, earning herself an eye-roll from Jean.

"Beanie mentioned to Darrell that Miss Parker and Miss Bell were close," Alicia said. Poor Beanie blushed and mouth a sorry to me, I simply shrugged with a smile.

"They were," I said.

"Close as in best friends or close as in something more that we don't discuss in public?" Alicia asked and I gaped for a moment, I probably looked like a goldfish.

I shared a few uncertain glances with Kitty, Lavinia and Beanie and then looked at the Malory Towers' girls. Most of them hadn't picked up on Alicia's insinuation and looked quite confused. Jean avoided looking at me or Alicia, Daphne's eyebrows had shot up in realisation, and Sally looked uneasy and I'm sure she was blushing.

"I think the latter," I said eventually.

"I can see why she was a suspect," Alicia said, crossing her legs at the ankle and swinging her legs back and forth.

"What are you talking about?" Gwendoline asked. She certainly wasn't the only one who had lost track of the conversation. I saw Darrell ask Sally something, no doubt the same question, and Sally leant across and whispered something in her ear. Darrell's face lit up with understanding.

Alicia leant forward. "Well—"

"You haven't explained why Miss Parker being here is a mystery though, why does it matter?" Darrell asked. Alicia looked thoroughly annoyed by the interruption and I was about to suggest letting her finish when something in the way Darrell looked at me changed my mind.

"I suppose it's not on its own." I fumbled over my words, trying not to look at Alicia. Mercifully, Kitty dived in and helped me out.

"But adding in the matter of her pretending that she doesn't know us and it becomes a bit suspicious," Kitty said.

"Maybe she just didn't like you?" Darrell suggested and that prompted some exaggerated outrage from Kitty and Lavinia followed by a lot of giggling as they recalled numerous times our class had wound Miss Parker up. After that, the conversation was completely waylaid and we all splintered off into little groups to talk.

"I really should go and check on Daisy," I said, "if I don't she'll simply stew herself into the worst possible mood."

I hurried out and towards West Tower but when I reached the dorms, Daisy wasn't there. She _had_ gone investigating without me. That made a dreadful, dull ache grow in my stomach and I went back down the stairs much slower. Had I been an awful friend by spending so much time with Mary-Lou and the others? But even as that thought tried to take hold, I pushed it firmly away. No, this was like Daisy's silliness over my friendship with Alexander. Well, not exactly the same but similar. I hadn't done anything wrong and I wasn't going to go beating myself up over this, not this time.

I _was_ going to find Daisy though.

The teachers were all still up and about so Daisy wouldn't have been foolish enough to go prying on the teacher's floor but she might have tried to find Miss Parker's classroom back in North Tower. I went back towards North Tower. As I crossed the courtyard, and just before reaching North Tower, I saw Alicia coming out of the door; I shuffled behind one of the trees and out of sight. It was instinct, I thought, I was too used to having to hide and spy on people. Just as I was about to step out, the door to North Tower opened again and Darrell ran out to catch up with Alicia.

"Wotcher, Hazel, spying on your new friends?" I nearly screamed when Daisy's voice practically tickled my left ear and the fact that Daisy's hand shot up and covered my mouth told me she had expected me to. Where _had_ she come from?

"Where have you been?" I whispered but Daisy's attention was firmly on the other two girls. I strained to listen and was able to hear most of what they said.

"Sally told me what you meant about Miss Parker and Miss Bell," Darrell said.

"Of course _she_ would know," Alicia sounded nasty for a second and I saw Daisy file that information away, no doubt for misuse later.

"I couldn't let you go telling Gwen what you meant," Darrell continued.

I couldn't hear what Alicia said next as she lowered her voice. Whatever it was must have been hurtful because Darrell got this funny look as though she might wallop Alicia. I wondered if Daisy and I would be able to break up a fight between the two of them if matters came to that.

"If Gwen knew that Miss Parker is... Just think, would you, Alicia?" Darrell said eventually, "What's the first thing Gwen would do?"

Alicia was quiet for a few moments, then said, "I wasn't really going to tell her." Even from our distance I could tell that it was a limp excuse of a lie. It didn't seem to matter though because Darrell gestured for Alicia to follow her back to North Tower and she did, with very little grumbling by the looks of it.

"Have a nice chat about their teacher, did you?" Daisy asked once the Malory Towers' girls had gone back inside. "It seems you've caused quite a stir."

"Where have you been?" I ignored her and repeated my earlier question.

"Well, since Alicia made the suggestion, I went to see what had happened with the two Mam'zelles," Daisy said and I groaned. Of course she had.

"What's the big mystery then?" I asked as Daisy pulled me back towards West Tower. I didn't know whether I was coming or going this evening!

"Not much of a mystery, Mam'zelle Rougier's had some bad news about her brother and is returning to France for a while to spend time with him. It sounds as though he's dreadfully unwell," Daisy explained, "I'm beginning to think any mysteries we find here are going to be just as dull as that."

Looking back, neither Daisy or I could have known just how wrong she was.


	10. High Spirits and Unfortunate Collisions (MT)

By the end of breakfast the next day, word had spread throughout the school that Mam'zelle Rougier had left school for a personal emergency. No-one seemed to know the exact details of the emergency but it had to be quite serious as she wasn't expected back for many weeks. A replacement French teacher would be found but until then, Mam'zelle Dupont was covering all French lessons. Given how exhausted that was likely to make her, the third formers were quite relieved they had French second lesson, before Mam'zelle Dupont would be at the end of her tether.

"Do you think that means we'll get fewer lessons or that they'll merge classes together?" Irene asked as they traipsed in from break.

"Fewer lessons, I should think," Alicia said, "how would they get us all in one class otherwise? Have us sitting on one another's laps?"

Mam'zelle Dupont was already in the classroom when they arrived so they quietly took their seats. 

"She doesn't look like she's slept well," Alicia whispered across to Darrell.

"Maybe she's worried about Mam'zelle Rougier?" Darrell whispered back, though she looked a little dubious about that being the case. Truthfully, the girls were never sure week-to-week whether the two Mam'zelles were on friendly terms or not.

"Alicia! Darrell! What is this whispering?" Mam'zelle Dupont stood up as she shouted and the girls clamped their mouths shut and faced forward. "So early and you are already causing me problems."

"Sorry Mam'zelle," both girls spoke at the same time. Mam'zelle's expression softened and she sat back down with a sigh.

" _Merci, mes enfants,"_ she said, "I am worried about Mam'zelle Rougier, I know you will all be on your best behaviour so that I have nothing more to worry about, _oui?_ "

" _Oui, Mam'zelle,_ " the class chorused back and they meant it, for they were all fond of the good-natured French teacher.

Mam'zelle Dupont still worked them hard and by the end they were glad that their next lesson was singing.

"Looking forward to seeing Mr Gregory again?" Lavinia asked, appearing at Mavis' shoulder with a sly grin.

"Why are you coming since you can't sing?" Alicia asked.

"My parents thought it would be a good idea to use the time I couldn't sing to work on improving my piano." Mavis gratefully latched onto the new question. "So I'll be playing some of the piano accompaniments. It was either that or I joined the fourth formers or second formers for an extra lesson in French or Maths."

The rest of the form could quite see why Mavis had opted for piano rather than extra lessons elsewhere and the distraction meant Mavis could get away with ignoring Lavinia's question.

"Some of them are quite stuffy about a few matters aren't they?" Lavinia chuckled, dropping back to join Hazel and Mary-Lou.

"You have been winding up Mavis any opportunity you get about Mr Gregory." Kitty pointed out.

"True," Lavinia grinned, "How exactly did Mavis lose her voice again, Mary-Lou?"

Mary-Lou looked troubled as she tried to decide how much to say and was just about to answer when another voice joined their conversation. "It was awful really, such a shame," and they looked around. They hadn't realised that Gwendoline had been walking behind them.

"Go on then, what happened?" Lavinia asked.

"She tried to enter this dreadful town talent show," Gwendoline explained, "but of course they wouldn't let schoolgirls enter and they turned her away. She ended up getting caught in the rain and collapsed. One of our teachers found her on the side of the road and brought her back to school but it was too late, she'd ruined her voice. She felt ever so silly about how she'd let such a daft idea ruin such a wonderful talent."

"Oh, how dreadful," Beanie said, "she must have been so upset."

"That's why we don't talk about it," Gwendoline said.

There was no chance to ask anything else because they had reached the music room and all went in, one by one, for their singing lesson.

-

"We all thought he was going to stamp on the chalk and then Miss Grayling walked in." On the way to lunch, Belinda had told the Deepdean girls about the prank Alicia and Betty had pulled in second form. The Deepdean girls were highly amused by Mr Young and his odd ways, and even more amused by how many girls were displaying their own odd behaviours around Mr Gregory. Mavis was quite relieved to no longer being the only girl on the receiving end of the teasing.

"We don't really do pranks at Deepdean," Beanie admitted, "I half think the teachers might give us a caning if we did, or a clip around the ear."

"The teachers here don't go in for that sort of punishment, though I am surprised Mam'zelle Dupont hasn't throw a board eraser at someone yet." Irene grinned. "If she'd seen what Darrell did with the invisible chalk she might very well have."

"Do we have to dredge that up again?" Darrell groaned, but when she glanced over her shoulder at Irene she was smiling.

"Darrell!" a voice from behind them in the corridor called out.

"Aaw, it's one of your fan club," Alicia teased, earning herself an elbow in response.

"Did you hear?" Kate, a little first former, came to a stop by Darrell. "About the practice match?"

"The exhibition match." Darrell ignored Alicia's grin. "I did, well done."

"You'll be there watching, right?" Kate asked and Darrell could almost feel Alicia's smile growing behind her.

"Of course. We all will," Darrell said. "Go on, before you're late to lunch."

Kate ran on ahead, practically bouncing in her excitement.

"Best make sure you're standing right at the front." Alicia chuckled.

"Shut up, Alicia," Darrell said a little brusquely. "The little ones just get excited is all."

"I'll say, she's practically floating," Jean nodded ahead to Kate. "Oh no..."

Unfortunately for poor Kate, as she skipped down the corridor, Miss Potts and another adult came around the corner and Kate ran straight into them.

"Kate! Do be careful," Miss Potts chastised immediately.

"Well, I never," the other woman said, staggering backwards a few steps and putting her hand to her chest in surprise.

"What were you thinking?" Miss Potts asked and Kate just stared back like a rabbit caught in car headlights.

Darrell hated to see anyone in such a situation and she hurried forward, shrugging off Alicia's hand.

"Kate's just had some very good news about the exhibition match and got a little over excited," Darrell said and she nudged Kate in the side, which seemed to bring Kate to life.

"I'm so terribly sorry Miss Potts, Miss..." Kate trailed off when she realised she didn't recognise the woman beside Miss Potts. And from the sour look the woman gave her, she didn't want to know her either.

"Mam'zelle Beaufort." The woman drew herself up to her full height and sneered at both Darrell and Kate. Darrell glanced at Miss Potts to see if she noticed but the other teacher was looking at them, not the woman beside her.

"Terribly sorry, Mam'zelle Beaufort," Kate apologised, lowering her gaze. The other girls quite felt that if Miss Potts had not been stood there, Mam'zelle Beaufort would not have accepted Kate's apology. As it was she accepted with a grace that the girls suspected was put on and hurried along with Miss Potts.

"Mam'zelle? Do you suppose she's interviewing for Mam'zelle Rougier's job?" Mary-Lou asked as they continued walking.

"Don't say that. If she gets the job she'll have it in for me now," Kate wailed.

"Do buck up, Kate." Darrell patted her awkwardly on the shoulder. "I'm sure she'll forget all about it. Look there's Edie, go catch up with her."

"It's rather quick, wouldn't you say, for a substitute to have applied and be interviewed?" Alicia asked once the first former had left and then she caught Daisy's eye and grinned. "Another mystery for your detective agency, Daisy?"

Daisy scowled for a moment and then cleared her expression and did her best to look unaffected.

"You could investigate and find a way to make sure she _doesn't_ get the job? That would be jolly useful, she seems awful," Darrell suggested and even Daisy's lips twitched with a ghost of a smile.

"You can't make that kind of judgment from meeting her once." Jean cut in as the voice of reason. "Now get a move on or we'll be in trouble for being late to lunch."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a short update, thank you for your patience.


	11. Enthusiasms and Best Interests (MMU)

Even after all the years I've spent at school in England, I cannot understand the English schoolgirl fascination with lacrosse.

Standing around on a field, in all sorts of weather, and shivering while trying to avoid being charged over or having your ankles whacked with a stick is not an activity that will ever, _ever_ appeal to me. Daisy adores lacrosse and, of course, she's very good at it. Which meant that, for once, she was chatting quite merrily with some of the Malory Towers girls about the game.

"There's a few of us awful at lacrosse." Mary-Lou smiled, linking her arm through mine on the way down to the changing rooms. "Miss Remmington usually knows to set up the teams so we have enough good players on each side to avoid us stuffing up the game."

I smiled in relief at that. Here, away from Deepdean, I didn't mind giving lacrosse a good go for the sake of being a good sport (a high honour in boarding schools) but for all the good intentions in the world, I doubted any real talent for the game would follow.

As we all got changed, Alicia arrived, late, bursting with news for us.

"I just found out that they hired that Mam'zelle Beaufort." Alicia grabbed her games uniform and raced to change in between sharing the news. "She could start immediately _and_ she came with jolly good references from her last school."

"How could you possibly know that?" Jean asked and I smiled, wondering how many times I had thought that about Daisy. I glanced at Daisy, dreading that she might be put out that Alicia had uncovered news before her but she was listening with interest.

"Doesn't it strike anyone as a bit convenient that she just happened to be looking for a job and could start here days after Mam'zelle Rougier had a personal emergency?" Alicia asked, brushing the creases out of her sports tunic and finished dressing quicker than some of the girls who had been there the entire time.

"Not everything is a mystery or a conspiracy, Alicia," Mavis teased as she followed Jean out of the changing room.

"Except when it is," Alicia called after her, then turned to Darrell. "What do you think?"

"I don't know." Darrell finished lacing her boots up. "It does seem terribly coincidental but sometimes coincidences do happen. I just hope she isn't as unpleasant as she seemed the other day."

Alicia glanced over at Daisy and I; I anticipated another joke about solving a mystery but nothing came and instead we all headed out onto the field.

The teams were well divided and as far as a lacrosse game during a lesson could go, it was quite an exciting one. There were a good few solid players across both the teams, clearly Malory Towers took sports more seriously than Deepdean, but what caused all the excitement was that the games mistress had placed Daisy and Darrell on opposite teams. 

Daisy was by far one of the best players at Deepdean and I could only hazard to guess — when Darrell outpaced our entire midfield and defense along the wing to pass into Jean so she could score — that Darrell was one of Malory Towers' best. Now, I see a good lacrosse player and decide it would be best to just hop out of the way if they're charging in my direction. Daisy sees a good lacrosse player, one she thinks of as being on her level, and she makes it into a single-minded pursuit of competition. Which more often than not ends in some kind of disaster.

Daisy made it her goal during the game to try and make any play as difficult as possible for Darrell. Darrell, from what I could tell, seemed overjoyed to have serious competition and didn't notice that the times where she would manage a clever feint that meant she could slip past Daisy and speed off with the ball only served to frustrate Daisy.

Late in the game, I saw the exact moment Daisy lost her cool and a split second later came the rather silly and dangerous tackle that sent both her and Darrell clattering to the floor. A sharp whistle signaled the game was to be called to a stop for a moment and I saw the flicker of embarrassment on Daisy's face as she realised how foolish she had been. She got up and held her hand out to help Darrell up. Darrell accepted, let Daisy pull her up and then nearly went back down again when her leg buckled, only stopped by Daisy grabbing her arm.

"Don't tell me that exchange girl has gone and injured Darrell ahead of next week's game," I heard someone fume from behind me and I looked over to see an older girl striding across the pitch.

"That's Molly Reynolds, our head of games," Mary-Lou whispered. That certainly explained the anger. I felt a sudden need to jump in and protect Daisy in any way possible, even though she was perfectly capable of defending herself.

"You better go and be checked by Matron," Miss Remmington was saying just as Molly reached them.

"I'll take her," Molly said and she turned on Daisy. "And you, I saw that tackle, awful behaviour."

Before Daisy could say anything, Darrell spoke, "It wasn't just Daisy, we both got overly competitive, Molly, that's all. I'm sure my leg will be fine if I rest properly."

Molly's scowl seemed to deepen and Daisy looked genuinely surprised at being defended. Then I saw a flicker of the old Daisy and she stood up straighter.

"I let my emotions get the better of me getting so into the game," Daisy explained, "I am sorry." That last part was directed to Darrell and it even sounded genuine. Whether it was or not, I would have to find out later.

Molly still insisted on taking Darrell to the San and Daisy said she would go off to the sidelines to even up the teams, which must have been an awfully big deal for her as lacrosse was the first thing she had enjoyed so far this whole exchange, so the remainder of the match was a far tamer event. There was a slight uneasiness in the changing rooms that led to subdued conversations and Daisy kept to herself in case the Malory Towers' girls were upset with her for the whole incident. Thankfully, when we went up to the common room, Darrell was there, showered and changed back into her uniform, and seemed as happy as always. I breathed a sigh of relief.

"As long as I don't overdo it, I should be fine by next weekend," Darrell explained, "so no real harm was done. Molly says I'm not allowed to play against Daisy again though because I get too enthusiastic and enthusiasm is not always in my best interests. Which is a shame because it was fun playing against you, you're a good player."

"I know", Daisy said with her trademark self-assuredness, it was the follow-up that surprised me. "So are you and I _am_ sorry I tackled you like that, I was a poor sport and you're so annoyingly nice and honest about everything that I feel even worse about it."

It wasn't the most conventional of truces perhaps but Darrell seemed quite amused by Daisy's description of her and it made her laugh, which rather cut through the tension in the rest of the room and when Daisy actually down on the sofa with Darrell and Sally, and joined in with a little bit of the conversation that went on, I felt like at last things could only get better.


	12. French, Threats and a Mysterious Letter (MT)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please click below or hit the 'End' button on your keyboard to read the Content Warning first.

"Is Mavis off at _another_ music lesson?" Daphne asked as she joined the rest of them sitting on the grass. "I've looked for her everywhere."

"Of course she is." Lavinia snorted. "Mr Gregory has simply been gushing about how she's improved already." Lavinia clutched her hands to her chest and fluttered her eyes in a ridiculously exaggerated manner, prompting giggles all around.

"She's not the only one being daft about Mr Gregory," Jean said, exasperated by the way many of the girls had started to behave around the young teacher. "I even thought about talking to Miss Peters or Miss Potts about it but it seems too much like sneaking."

"Oh leave them to it." Alicia waved her hand lazily from where she lay on the grass. "It's not hurting anyone."

"It could," Sally said quietly.

"You think everything is too risky." Alicia waved her hand again to dismiss Sally's concerns. "It's just silliness, nothing more than that."

"Silliness can sometimes become something more serious," Daisy said, "haven't you heard rumours about this sort of thing in other schools?"

"Look, there's Irene," Alicia said, spotting the other girl walking over to them. "She must have had extra teaching from Mr Gregory, she can tell us what he is like."

Irene had barely sat down when Alicia asked, "What's Mr Gregory like in one to one lessons?"

"How should I know? Ask Mavis," Irene fanned out her sheet music on the grass and put it back in order. Somehow it would be out of order by the next time she needed it.

"How can you not know?" Alicia asked, catching one of the sheets as a gust of wind caught it and nearly sent it flying off. "You always have extra lessons."

"I _used to,"_ Irene corrected, "but Mr Young isn't teaching any of the lower school this term and I don't like Mr Gregory so I'm taking a break from them."

"Why don't you like him?" Daisy jumped in before Alicia could.

"He just..." Irene looked off into space for a few seconds. "I don't really know how to put it. I just find everything about him irritating."

The bell for afternoon lessons went and all talk about Mr Gregory was pushed aside. History was mercifully uneventful and Miss Carlton found no need to pull any of the girls up for lack of effort. They were just making their way to French when they came across the first formers crowding in the corridor.

"Come on, move alone you lot," Daphne chided. Some of the first formers started walking straight away and then Edie popped out from the small huddle remaining and tugged on Darrell's sleeve.

"Mam'zelle Beaufort threatened to ban Kate from the lacrosse game, she's awfully upset," Edie explained.

Darrell shot Alicia a look to silence any silly comment she had.

"Well, the rest of you clear off. You won't be making her feel better by crowding her," Darrell said to the younger girls. Most of the third and first formers took the hint and carried on to lessons.

"What happened?" Darrell asked Kate.

The story came tumbling out about how Kate had found the French work particularly difficult and couldn't get a few pronunciations right and how Mam'zelle Beaufort had been convinced she was doing it on purpose. The more she criticised Kate, the more nervous the poor girl had become, until the rest of her spoken French suffered too. 

"I have to go back this afternoon for my punishment." Kate rubbed her eyes with her hands. "It will be frightful, I'm sure of it. _She's_ frightful."

"It'll probably be lines or cleaning the classroom," Darrell reassured her, "which is boring but it's not too bad."

"Mam'zelle was being unfair though, wasn't she?" Edie asked. "Especially threatening to make sure Kate couldn't play in the match."

Darrell hesitated, not sure that she should openly criticise a new teacher in front of the younger students. She was relieved when Sally spoke up.

"Some teachers are stricter than others, especially newer teachers so they're not given the run around in class," Sally explained, "I'm sure she won't ban you from the team but you better run along to your next class before we're all late and in more trouble."

Privately though, as they walked quickly to class, both Darrell and Sally thought that the punishment did seem a little too much. Worse still, the third formers had French with Mam'zelle Beaufort next and if she was in a foul mood they would soon find out.

Mam'zelle Beaufort certainly was firm and the lesson got off to a swift and quiet start. In many ways, it wasn't so dissimilar to Mam'zelle Rougier's lessons and after more than two years of those lessons, the third formers found it easy enough to settle down and concentrate. The stricter French lessons were always balanced out by Mam'zelle Dupont's more easy going ones so they didn't mind. After going over the key points for the lesson on the board, they were set work to complete by themselves. Even the girls who normally flew through such tasks, like Alicia, took longer than usual to work through the difficult exercise and there was a good ten minutes of silence in the class before something happened to disrupt them.

"Darrell Rivers!" Mam'zelle Beaufort's sharp voice made half the girls in the class jump, including Darrell. "Stand up and repeat what you were saying."

Darrell looked utterly bewildered but stood up as she was told to. Though she couldn't go through with the second request because she hadn't been saying anything.

"Well?" Mam'zelle took a few steps forward and Darrell desperately tried to think of an answer that wouldn't be impudent.

"I truly wasn't speaking Mam'zelle," Darrell said.

"I saw your lips moving, or do you question my eyesight?" Mam'zelle asked.

"I was rereading my work, I might have been mouthing the words I suppose?" Darrell offered as the only explanation she could think of. She knew she did that sometimes because Alicia had made fun of her for it.

"A likely story." Mam'zelle turned and walked back to her desk. "Very well, if you won't be honest then you can stay back with me after class."

Darrell felt a hot flame in her chest as the familiar burn of her temper took over. If Sally hadn't taken her hand and squeezed it, Darrell was sure her temper would have gotten her into even more trouble.

"Yes, Mam'zelle," she choked out instead and sat back down.

The girls spent the rest of the lesson barely daring to breathe and when the bell went and everyone but Darrell headed out, more than a few sympathetic glances were sent her way.

"Oh how awful, I hope Mam'zelle isn't too hard on her." Mary-Lou sighed on the way up to the common room.

"I thought Darrell was going to blow up when Mam'zelle told her she had to stay back," Kitty admitted, "She looked so angry."

"Well that's because Mam'zelle accused her of being dishonest, isn't it?" Daisy asked, opening the door to the common room and striding in.

"Of course it is," Alicia said, "if Darrell _had_ been talking, she would have owned up to it. It's a good job she wasn't doing that thing where she sticks her tongue out when she's concentrating or Mam'zelle might have thrown her out of the class for impudence."

"It was mightily unfair though," Daphne added, "Mam'zelle overreacted if you ask me."

"She's making Kate go back after class as well," Sally said, "all because her pronunciation wasn't as good as Mam'zelle wanted it to be."

"Oh no, if she starts punishing us for poor pronunciation, I'll be in detention with her every day we have French," Beanie groaned.

"I hope she's just being so strict to make a point or it'll be a frightful term," Alicia mused and there was a murmur of agreement amongst the others.

Once half an hour was nearly up, Sally got up and headed out of the common room. "I'll go find Darrell before she goes off and stews somewhere."

"I'll come with you," Daisy called after her, uninvited, and hurried to catch up.

"I don't know if that's a good idea..." Sally said as Daisy pulled the door shut behind her.

"I want to find out what this Mam'zelle is up to," Daisy said as though that were the only justification she needed and, not sure how to dissuade her, Sally reluctantly let her go along.

They turned down the corridor to the classrooms and Daisy caught Sally's arm and stopped her. Further down the corridor stood Miss Parker, hunched over a letter with a deep frown growing on her brow. They watched as she got to the bottom of the letter and then started to tear the letter up.

Sally, not entirely comfortable with being privy to the emotional outburst of a teacher, starting walking again. The sound of footsteps prompted Miss Parker to look up and she shoved the letter into the pocket of her cardigan and forced a smile on her face.

"Sally. Looking for Darrell?" Miss Parker asked, even her light voice sounding put on, "I just saw her head outside."

"Thank you, Miss Parker," Sally wasn't sure she managed to smile as naturally as she should have if she wanted to convince Miss Parker they hadn't been watching her but Miss Parker seemed so preoccupied that she didn't notice. The teacher hurried off down the corridor, pointedly not looking at Daisy.

"That _was_ a little peculiar," Sally admitted, then saw Daisy crouch down. "Whatever are you doing?"

Daisy stood back up and held up a few torn pieces of paper, parts of the letter that Miss Parker had been reading.

"I don't know if we should read her private correspondence," Sally said hesitantly, though she had to admit she was a little curious herself about Miss Parker's odd behaviour.

"Sometimes we must invade people's privacy in the pursuit of solving crime," Daisy said, examining the pieces of paper carefully.

"What crime exactly has Miss Parker committed?" Sally asked. "I thought you wanted to investigate Mam'zelle Beaufort?"

"I'm perfectly capable of investigating more than one person but for now, this must take precedent," Daisy said, putting the pieces of paper carefully in her tunic pocket. "If Darrell does say anything valuable about Mam'zelle, do let me know."

As Daisy hurried off back towards the common room, Sally shook her head with a sigh and carried on looking for Darrell before her friend worked herself up into being more upset than she already was.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content Warning: Veiled discussion relating to adults abusing students in school settings.


	13. Disaster on the Field (MMU)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Back from hiatus. More details at the end :)

"Could it be Mam'zelle Beaufort's first name?" Beanie asked, leaning over my shoulder and looking at the scraps of paper. Two of the three hadn't much to them, _'the whole matter'_ and _'have to take',_ which were common enough words that we couldn't tease the meaning out of them. The third, however, had a name on it.

_'Beatrice was'_

"Is Beatrice even French?" Lavinia looked doubtful.

"Also, what a frightful name." Kitty giggled. "Beatrice Beaufort, her parents mustn't like her much if that's her name."

"While it is a slightly unfortunate alliteration," Daisy said firmly, "Beatrice does have French origins. Béatrice is the original pronunciation."

"How do you know that?" Lavinia asked.

"I just do." Daisy brushed off the question and she tucked the pieces of paper away safely in our case notes. Daisy would never let anyone know, after all, that she got her knowledge from something so mundane as a book. No, she far preferred coming across as mysterious and wise. Not that Lavinia thought either of those things of her.

"But it can't be from Mam'zelle because why would she refer to herself in the third person?" Kitty asked. "So who would be writing to Miss Parker about her?"

We all looked at each other for answers but none of us seemed to have any ideas.

"It's nearly time for the match," I said, checking the time, "let's go and find the others."

I had already asked Daisy why we weren't sharing the notes with the Malory Towers girls and she had muttered something about waiting for the right time and then about how they weren't in the Detective's Society. Honestly, it was like encouraging her to work with Alexander and George all over again (though Daisy would probably point out that I didn't so much encourage as force). I was counting it as a victory that I convinced her to show Lavinia and the others.

We caught up with the third formers on the way down to the lacrosse field and I sped up to catch up with Mary-Lou and Daphne.

"I wondered where you had gotten to," Mary-Lou said.

"Oh, Daisy wanted to talk about something," I said vaguely, waving in the direction I had left Daisy. I had no idea if she was still there or if she had done another disappearing act.

As we got closer to the field, we caught up with some of the fourth formers. Alicia and the others seemed to know two of them — Ellen and Katherine — rather well and they chatted to us while we walked.

"Did you hear about little Kate?" Katherine asked as we got close to the field. "I don't know exactly what happened but the new Mam'zelle gave her detention and wanted to ban her from the game because it was her second detention with her. Miss Potts stepped in and said that would be rather unfair when she had already been suitably punished."

"Mam'zelle really has it in for Kate doesn't she?" Alicia said. "You can tell she has certain students she picks on, she was just hoping that you were going to mess up in French again yesterday, Darrell. Good job you were on your best behaviour."

"Oh no, Kate looks so upset," Mary-Lou said as we crowded around the pitch. I looked over to the lacrosse players and saw the misery right across the younger girl's face. She was fidgeting and twice she completely lost her grip on her lacrosse stick and it dropped out of her hands.

"Perhaps you should go and buck her up a bit?" Jean suggested to Darrell. "You know how much the little ones look up to you."

"I don't see what I could say to make matters any better," Darrell protested weakly but when the other girls insisted it was worth a shot she sighed and walked over to speak to the younger girls. I wondered how she was supposed to buck _anyone_ up when she seemed out of sorts herself.

"I bet these vindictive punishments are all because of that day Mam'zelle came for her interview," Alicia said.

"It can't just be that," Sally said, "I heard there's a couple of second formers in South Tower she has it in for too, they weren't there when Kate bumped into Mam'zelle."

"Off doing your own investigating are you?" Alicia wriggled her eyebrows in a deliberately silly manner and got an exasperated "Shut up," from Sally. I had to admit, I was fascinated by the two of them and the way they bickered sometimes, especially since Sally seemed to keep herself so composed around every other student.

"Did Darrell say anything about her punishment with Mam'zelle?" Daisy asked suddenly.

Sally looked torn about whether she was willing to discuss Darrell's business without her there and, much to her relief I imagine, she was saved from answering when Darrell returned. She didn't look happy.

"It went _that_ well did it?" Alicia said sarcastically.

"I don't think I helped all that much," Darrell sighed, "Kate's a quivering wreck."

"Cheer up, old thing, I'm sure at least you didn't make it worse." Alicia clapped Darrell on the shoulder. I was sure I heard Darrell mutter something about not being too sure about that but it was swallowed up by the excited cheers as the two lacrosse teams walked onto the pitch.

The match started quickly and the game was barely five minutes in when Daisy leant in and whispered to me, "Looks like Kate isn't the only one with the wobbles."

Daisy was right. It wasn't like I had a reference for how the first and second formers usually played but given what I had seen of some of the other forms, I couldn't for one moment imagine that they usually played this poorly. Passes were thrown abysmally wide or fumbled by the receiver, and the opposition scooped up ball after ball and raced down to the Malory Towers goal. The poor goalie tried her absolute best but she was under such a barrage that soon the goals were flying in.

"Oh no." Darrell groaned and turned around when the fifth ball went flying past the Malory Towers goalie.

"Come on, you'll upset them even more if you turn your back on the game," Sally whispered, nudging her back around.

"And what will it do for team spirits if I cry?" Darrell asked but let Sally turn her around.

The half-time whistle went and the teams went over to their respective coaches for water and slices of lemon to suck on. I could see Malory Tower's head of games, Molly, trying to rally the girls for the second half. Or rather I could _hear_ her, she was frightfully loud and hearty; even I felt as though I might be able to get a ball from one end of the pitch with Molly's enthusiasm and encouragement.

It didn't have quite the same effect on the Malory Towers team, though, and by the time Malory Towers were eight down, the opposition eased off and slowed the game down. I don't know whether it was meant to be a good-willed gesture of not humiliating Malory Towers or something else but it meant the final score when Miss Remmington blew the whistle was only nine-nil when it could quite easily have been much worse.

Good manners won out through disappointment and the Malory Towers' players almost managed a brave face as they congratulated the other school and the rest of the school loudly applauded the winners.

"That was the worst game of lacrosse I've ever seen," Darrell said, voicing exactly what no-one else wanted to say. Her curls were quite wild and wayward from where she had ran her hands through them in her pains over watching the game.

"Definitely don't say _that_ to any of the little ones when they come looking for a shoulder to cry on," Alicia said grimly.

Dinner was an awfully dismal event, the disappointment just seemed to creep through everyone. I quickly gathered that losing wasn't the problem; it was the humiliation of the steamrollering the school had gotten. Alicia wanted to dissect some of the game-play but Darrell wasn't a willing conversation partner and eventually Alicia gave up. Things perked up a little in the common room but all of us were quite relieved when it was time to go to bed.

"They do take their games very serious," Lavinia said as she changed into her pajamas.

"Even _I_ would be upset if Deepdean put on a performance like that," Daisy jumped up onto the windowsill and sat on it. "Gosh, I've never seen such a hopeless game."

"That's a little harsh, they're only shrimps," I protested, feeling that Daisy's tongue was getting away from her like it so often did.

"They were chosen for that match because they were meant to be particularly good players," Daisy said, "so no, it's not harsh, it's an observation, Watson."

Daisy glanced between the rest of the girls and went slightly pink in the cheeks when Lavinia grinned. Daisy didn't like calling me Watson in front of other people too much because some people — Lavinia — found it highly amusing and Daisy fretted that others thought her childish for saying it. Heaven forbid Daisy Wells be seen as childish. I did worry as she used my nickname less and less, that eventually she would stop using it entirely and I would lose yet another strand of the sweet and private thing that we shared.

Now it was my turn to blush and I hurried on with getting changed as quickly as I could to hide the red on my own cheeks. Snuggled down in our beds — Daisy only jumping into hers when she heard Matron walking along the corridor — we all quietened down to get to sleep. I heard Beanie snuffling and mumbling in her sleep and grinned to myself. Kitty tossed and turned for a minute or so and then there was quiet from her bed. I peeked out across the room and saw that Lavinia was fast asleep as well, her mouth slightly open. As for me, well, I took a while to get comfortable, then tried to lay still and get some sleep but found my mind whirring.

I couldn't place it. It was as though there was a part of a problem I was close to working out but I couldn't think what it was. I wondered if it was something to do with the scraps of the note but that didn't feel right. I wondered next if it was a more personal study I had been doing, perhaps an observation of one of the students that had been troubling me but examining those thoughts came up empty as well.

It must have been midnight when, just as I was finally starting to drift off, I heard the dull clunk. I sat upright and listened. There were a few quieter noises, scuffles of a sort, and then silence. I looked over at Daisy's bed and smiled when I saw she was awake as well. Of course she was.

Daisy sat up and put her finger to her lips — quite unnecessarily as I do know when and how to be quiet — and then waved for me to follow her. We tiptoed to the window and peered out but couldn't see anything in the dark.

Another sound came from outside, a thud as though something heavy had fallen, or perhaps a door had been allowed to fall shut. Daisy reached out and slid the window open, but I had to reach out and stop her when she went to climb out.

"We can't climb onto the roof from here like at Deepdean," I whispered.

Daisy faltered and looked embarrassed for a moment. "Habit," she said a little gruffly, and leant out the window instead.

A few seconds passed and she pulled her head back in and closed the window, "It's not this side of the school."

I snuck after Daisy, out of the room and down the corridor to the windows as the end. They didn't open, much to Daisy's frustration, but we heard yet another sound, another thud, and pressed our faces to the glass to try and see what was causing it.

"Is that..." Daisy squinted and then shook her head. "Never mind."

I looked anyway, trying to see what Daisy thought she had spotted but couldn't see anything untoward. We stood there for nearly five minutes but there were no more unusual noises.

"Could it be the groundskeeper?" I asked, though even I could hear I didn't sound convinced about that.

"This late?" Daisy asked, "I rather doubt it. I could be a teacher, I suppose."

Daisy didn't sound anymore convinced with her suggestion than I did with mine.

"We better go back to bed," I said eventually. Whatever the mysterious noises were, we could hardly stand in the corridor all night to see if they happened again.

I tugged Daisy's hand, "If it was something unusual, we'll find out tomorrow I'm sure." That was enough to get Daisy following me back to the dorm.

If only I had known then how right I was. If I'd had even an inkling, we might have spent a little longer investigating that night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to any readers for your patience.
> 
> I am slowly taking all my fics off hiatus one-by-one as I am in the process of resolving some writing inaccuracies and problems. Thank you to those who pointed out my errors and helped me fix some of those errors (unsure if online social etiquette is to name so forgive the vagueness). 
> 
> Improving writing will always be a work in progress so please bear with me as I work on tidying up my older writing and improving heading forward.
> 
> I hope you continue to enjoy this fic :)


	14. A Most Troubling Answer (MT)

The lacrosse game wasn't at the front of everyone's mind the next morning, which meant the atmosphere in the third form dorm was far cheerier.

For the most part.

"Irene, would you give me back my wash-bag?" Gwen demanded, trying to catch up with the other girl.

"I've told you, I don't know where your wash-bag _is,_ " Irene said firmly, putting a bag down by the sink. "This is mine."

Sally had just finished brushing her teeth at the next sink over and she checked the little tag at the end of the bag. "Well, that might be partly true. You probably don't know where Gwen's bag is but unless your name is Irene Morrison now, this isn't your bag."

"Morrison?" Irene took the bag from Sally. "Oh, bother."

"Irene! Give me back my bag, you donkey. Gwen, I've got yours..." Belinda called.

"Where's mine then?" Irene wandered off in search for it.

Sally shook her head with a grin and finished washing her face, "I am surprised we ever all make it to breakfast on time."

There was no reply and when Sally looked at Darrell, who was tidying her belongings away at the next sink over, it looked like her friend was off in her own world. Sally held her tongue. As much as she wanted to ask Darrell what was on her mind, she expected she wouldn't find out by simply asking. It couldn't just be the lacrosse game because Darrell had been out of sorts for a few days and whenever Sally asked if she was alright, Darrell forced herself to smile and said, "Of course I am, why wouldn't I be?", which made Sally worry even more. It was peculiar enough for Darrell to lie at all but she had _never_ lied to Sally, not even when it might have served in her own best interests. Sally glanced over to where Alicia had found Irene's wash-bag for her. Not even when Sally might really want Darrell to lie, for the sake of Sally's self-esteem.

Eventually, the whole form made it down to breakfast, meeting Hazel and the others along the way.

"All recovered from your bitter disappointment?" Lavinia asked.

"Just about. Life goes on," Alicia said.

The hall during breakfast was almost back to normal with girls chatting and laughing again. In fact, Darrell was the only girl at the third form table who was unusually quiet. Alicia noticed Darrell had only taken a single bite from her toast and nudged her. "On rations?"

"Hmm?" Darrell looked down. "Oh, I'm not hungry."

"You have to eat something, if you faint from hunger later then Sally will get into an awful tizzy, you know how she clucks sometimes," Alicia glanced at Sally and grinned when the other girl rolled her eyes. 

"What's all that ruckus about at the first form table?" Belinda asked. Girls turned to look. Miss Potts was speaking to Matron, growing ever more alarmed while the talking among the first formers could only be described as panicked. Then, all of a sudden, Miss Potts and Matron hurried out of the dining hall.

"Whatever is that about?" Alicia asked.

"One of the first formers isn't there," Sally said, "there's an empty seat just beside Edie. Maybe someone's come down really unwell."

"It's Francine who's missing," Darrell said, "she was in goal yesterday. Maybe she worried herself sick?"

Putting the odd occurrence out of their minds, they finished breakfast and headed off to Maths which was much the same as always; Alicia raced through the classwork and amused herself by distracting other people when Miss Peters' back was turned, Gwen huffed and puffed her way through the bare minimum of her work, and Irene managed to complete her Maths in Jean's Maths book.

"I don't understand how you always seem to have everyone else's belongings," Jean said, "You heard me getting a talking to for not having my Maths book and all the time it was in front of you!"

"It was in _my_ desk, why would I check the name on the front?" Irene asked.

"And you didn't notice the handwriting wasn't yours?" Jean sighed.

"Say, what are the police doing here?" Lavinia asked, coming to a stop and making some of the others collide into her.

They peered down the corridor and, sure enough, there were two police officers in uniform talking to Miss Potts and Miss Grayling. The girls could only watch for a few seconds because Miss Grayling led the police off towards the stairs, no doubt to her office where curious school girls couldn't overhear.

"You don't think this is about Francine, do you?" Daphne asked.

"If it is, she certainly isn't sick," Daisy said. "You don't need the police because someone's ill. Not unless they've been poisoned, of course."

"I hardly think someone's running around poisoning our first formers," Alicia said scornfully, "but it is rather peculiar."

Daisy wanted to go and find out what had happened but, as it turned out, no such investigation was required because instead of their next lesson, all the girls were called to the hall for an emergency assembly.

"It must be serious," Alicia murmured, "look how grim Miss Potts looks."

The North Tower mistress looked most serious indeed, none of the third formers could remember ever seeing such a pinched expression on her face. At the front of the hall with Miss Potts were Miss Grayling and the two police officers. Miss Grayling stood up and the thrum of whispers faded away to silence.

"Good morning, girls," the head mistress said, "I shan't keep you here long but we felt it was important to tell you all at once before any rumours got out of hand. During the night, it seems Francine Evans from North Tower left school grounds and has yet to return. We will, of course, be talking to all of the first formers but should anyone else know anything, I must stress the importance of speaking to a teacher immediately."

Predictably, the hall was filled with nervous and excited chatter.

"Was she _that_ upset about the game that she'd have run away?" Alicia asked as the voices around them got louder. "Darrell?"

"I don't know her as well as some of the others," Darrell said, "I wouldn't have thought so though."

Alicia was about to ask another question when Miss Grayling raised her voice and quietened them all down. The forms were dismissed one by one and sent outside for another fifteen minutes of break. After all, none of the girls would have been able to concentrate on class straight away.

"Wonder what they're whispering about?" Alicia nodded ahead of them to where Daisy and Hazel were talking. "I suppose this is actually a mystery for them to solve."

"It's a pretty awful mystery," Mavis said, "I do hope they find Francine soon."

"Why would _anyone_ be so bothered about a lacrosse game that they ran away?" Daphne asked, the very idea of being so invested in a sport simply bewildering to her.

"She is only twelve," Sally pointed out. "Perhaps some of the others were teasing her?"

"I hardly see why, from where I was standing they were all awful," Alicia said.

"Alright, alright," Jean said, "that's enough. Now before you all go off on tangents about mysteries, did anyone hear or see anything they should tell a teacher?"

None of them had and they all looked around to check if anyone else had.

"Where's Gwen?" Irene asked, "She was right here a moment ago."


	15. Sympathies and Late Night Investigations (MMU)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Halloween everyone.

I almost had to run to keep up with Daisy, "We are going to speak to one of the teachers, stop being ridiculous about this, Daisy!"

Daisy ignored me, much to my irritation and I wished that either she didn't have quite such long legs or I didn't have quite such short ones. Shouldn't I have had my growth spurt by now?

"Daisy!"

The sharpness of my tone finally made Daisy slow down — not stop, mind you — and I managed to catch up with her without being completely out of breath.

"We heard noises. We have to tell someone," I insisted.

"Or we could simply go and find her ourselves, think about it Hazel." Daisy stopped abruptly and turned around. "We're far more likely to be able to find her than the police are give our track record."

"We know _nothing_ about her Daisy," I said, "and unlike Deepdean, we don't really know anyone else either! Why would they talk to us?"

Daisy looked at me with such pity, as though she thought that I had temporarily taken leave of my senses. "We've gotten plenty of adults to talk to us about matters relating to murders, Watson, I hardly think persuading some nervous school girls will be difficult."

I went to rebut that when I spotted a flash of blonde hair and looked around to see Gwen hurrying away from the school. Her cheeks were awfully red and she had a strange look on her face, a mixture of anger and upset. Daisy followed my gaze and walked over to cut off Gwen's route.

"Gwen, is everything alright?" the Daisy charm came on immediately. 

Gwen looked startled to see us there and it took her a moment to gather herself. She seemed embarrassed that we had come across her upset; she pressed her hands to her cheeks and took a deep breath in through her nose.

"Yes, yes. Quite alright." Gwen was also a spectacularly terrible liar when she was emotional it seemed.

"It doesn't seem to be alright," Daisy said, "Here, why don't you tell Hazel and I what's bothering you?"

Gwen smiled back at Daisy. I felt a little sorry for her, actually, because it was only natural that she thought Daisy was being nice to her because she liked her or because she wanted to be a good friend. Poor Gwen wasn't to know that Daisy was only interested in seeing what she could learn from her and whether it had any bearing on one of the so-called mysteries Daisy was convinced were happening at Malory Towers. Mary-Lou had told me that Gwen didn't have a particular friend among the form; in fact, from what I could tell, she wasn't very much liked at all. Mary-Lou wouldn't tell me why, she said she didn't like to dwell on people's faults.

"I thought I heard something last night." Gwen sniffled a little and then continued. "So I went straight to find a teacher. I wanted to go to Miss Potts or Miss Grayling, really, but they were talking to first formers with the police so I found Miss Carlton and told her what I knew and she was just..."

Gwen's eyes filled up with tears and I took over. Daisy never was much use with girls crying.

"What happened?" I asked, gently putting my arm around Gwen's shoulders. Daisy took out a clean handkerchief, her contribution to situations with tears, and held it out. Gwen accepted it.

"Nothing really, I suppose," Gwen said, dabbing at her eyes delicately. "She just looked at me and sighed and asked if I was sure I hadn't dreamt or if perhaps I was hearing things. I insisted I wasn't and she said she would tell Miss Grayling but... Oh, it's so difficult to explain!"

I kept quiet and sure enough Gwen continued, "It was just how she looked at me and how she said it. Like what I knew wasn't worth anything."

"That's an awful way for a teacher to behave," I sympathised, "Especially when a girl is missing. You would think they would appreciate all the help they could get."

Gwen folded the handkerchief up and hesitated for a moment. Daisy quickly said she could keep it, she had plenty.

"I suppose they must think I'm lying." Gwen's voice went rather small.

"What would they think that for?" Daisy asked. "Who would lie about a missing girl?"

"I haven't always told the whole truth about matters in the past," Gwen admitted, her cheeks going dusky red again. "But I wouldn't lie about something like this, not after what happened with Mary-Lou and Daphne last year. Not that anyone would believe me. That's why I didn't tell Jean or the others."

I could see Daisy's natural curiosity meant she  was torn over whether to ask for more details about whatever had happened with Mary-Lou and Daphne. I was curious as well but we did have more important matters at hand.

"What did you hear? Or see?" I asked. I led Gwen over to one of the picnic benches and sat down with her. Daisy stayed standing, no doubt so she could race off at a drop of a hat if the need arose.

"Well, I woke up at about midnight because Irene was talking in her sleep _again_. I was just wondering how to get her to stop when I heard a bang—"

"What sort of bang?" Daisy asked, "What did it sound most like?"

Gwen thought about it for a few seconds, "Like a door shutting quite hard. So, I sat up and listened, then I heard another noise..." She trailed off and frowned as she tried to think of a description. "I suppose it was like something scuffing their feet? So I got up and went over to the window and looked out but I couldn't see anything. Then I heard a girl cry out and I thought I saw a light but it was gone so quickly that I'm not sure."

"Miss Carlton really was foolish for not taking you seriously," Daisy said, "why, this sort of thing is the exact sort of clue the police would need."

"Do you think I should go back to Miss Grayling and make sure Miss Carlton told her?" Gwen asked, her face lighting up at Daisy's words.

"No, no..." Daisy trailed off and looked off towards the school. "I'm sure she'll tell her. It's just good you told us too."

"Are you going to investigate?" Gwen asked, "Will you be helping the police like you did before?"

"Something like that," Daisy said, "but for now, I suppose we must all make our way to class. Though how we're supposed to concentrate when something as exciting as all this is going on. You've been most helpful Gwen, I do hope if you hear anything else useful you will let us know."

"Oh, I will!" Gwen said, "I definitely will."

-

Daisy and I made our plans throughout the day by passing notes when no-one was looking. I was sure at one point that Alicia had seen us but she turned back to the board without any kind of comment and she didn't follow up by annoying us later on in the day either, so I must have been mistaken.

We didn't even tell Kitty and the others what we were planning because they might have insisted on coming with us. Having other members of the Detectives Society was jolly useful most of the time but not so much when you were planning on sneaking out of your dorm in the middle of the night. It was difficult enough to not be caught with just two of you, let alone five!

It was so difficult to lie and wait for the sound of footsteps that signalled that the the older girls were going up to bed. The fourth, the fifth, then finally the sixth. Even after that we had to wait until we were sure that the last of the teachers had gone to bed. Finally, just as my eyes were getting too heavy for me to keep lying there, Daisy nudged me.

We tiptoed out of the dorm, our dressing downs wrapped tightly around us, and down the stairs. Daisy took the key hanging on the hook, unlocked the door and then re-locked it behind us. We would have to come back the same way to return the key and hope that, in the meantime, no mistresses did a check around school.

We hurried across the courtyard to North Tower. Daisy wanted to see if we could retrace the steps Francine must have taken. Once we were inside, we tiptoed up to outside the first form dormitory.

"Now, we heard the noise coming from..." Daisy murmured to herself and turned on the spot. "She must have left via the door down that end." 

Off we went again, moving slowly and looking for anything that seemed out of order. As Daisy took the key to unlock the door, I realised that Francine must have left the school unlocked all night after she left. While the school was a fair distance from the nearest town, I didn't like the idea of us doing the same so reminded Daisy that we needed to lock up behind us. The door at the end of the hall was heavier than we expected and Daisy whispered that it was no doubt the thud both of us and Gwendoline had heard.

Back outside, the grass rolled out ahead of us towards the sea and shadows grew out of the distance. I imagined a tiny shrimp heading out into that darkness and shuddered on her behalf. 

"If you were running away, where would you go from here?" Daisy whispered close to my ear.

I looked around as best as I could and then pointed towards one of the fields alongside the Malory Towers grounds. "That way. I shouldn't want to go anywhere near the sea in case I lost my footing on the cliff edge," — I shivered at the thought — "and the hedgerow would provide cover while the moon gave me light to see by."

"Excellent, Watson," Daisy murmured and I rather glowed at the praise. "Now, Gwendoline said she heard scuffling and a yelp. What could have caused that?"

"Perhaps Francine tripped over something?" I suggested.

"A reasonable deduction," Daisy said, "but what could..."

Daisy walked out a few more steps and then stopped. She turned around and continued her examination then pointed to a spot a metre in front of me. I rubbed my eyes with my palms, remembering Daisy saying that it speeds up your eyes adjusting to the dark (though I'm not completely sure it does), and then looked at where Daisy was pointing and saw a lump in the ground. I shuffled forward and nudged it with my foot. It was solid, something beneath the earth pushing the ground up. Francine could certainly have tripped over that.

"Let's walk to the edge of the grounds and see what else we can find," Daisy strode off in the direction I had said I would go if I were running away.

I followed her, wondering first of all if there was anything left to find given that the police had been here, and secondly whether we had any hope of seeing it ourselves in the darkness. I glanced over my shoulder at one point to check that there was no-one looking out the windows at us and the school, with it's towers looming down at us, seemed about twice the size it did during the day. There were no faces at any windows so I breathed a little easier and sped up to catch Daisy. We reached the wooden gate and the hedges between Malory Towers and the field without finding anything.

"The ground's softer here, there might be shoe prints if those clod-hopping policemen haven't ruined them all," Daisy murmured. She crouched down and examined the ground, then tutted in disgust. Clearly the police had trampled whatever evidence might have been there. I climbed the gate, thankful it only creaked the once, and tried to put myself in the shoes of a terrified first former as I hopped down the other side.

"Which way is the nearest town?" I whispered.

Daisy scaled the gate, making a bit more noise than I did in her haste, jumped down next to me and pointed out along one of the hedges. "That way."

I began to walk alongside the hedge, looking carefully at the ground before I stepped and at the hedge. Nothing. Despondent, we returned to school grounds.

"How does a girl simply vanish into nowhere?" Daisy said. "There's simply no trace of her having come out here at all."

"Perhaps the police already found it?" I suggested. "We could come back during the day, maybe there's something we missed."

Daisy reluctantly agreed and we made our way back up to the school, keeping to the shadows as best we could, both feeling rather disappointed that all we had learnt was that Francine had probably tripped over a lump of mud.

The creak of the gate seemed so much louder than when I had stood on it and I grabbed Daisy's arm and yanked her further into the shadows. I looked over my shoulder and at the sight of the figure walking up towards us and the school, I tightened my grip on Daisy so much that I worried that I might have bruised her. I held my breath as the figure headed up to North Tower, passing barely more than a few metres in front of us. Even so close, I couldn't have given much of a description of them. I could see that their hooded coat was dark, perhaps blue or black, and that they had boots on. They unlocked the North Tower door and went inside. The split second after we heard the clunk of the lock setting again, Daisy pulled me to run with her.

We reached the door and Daisy pressed her ear to it. She took the North Tower key from her pocket while she listened.

"They had their own key..." I murmured, realising the significance. "What if they notice the other key is gone?"

Daisy stopped midway to putting the key in the lock and eyed the door again. "Why would they have looked?"

"It's right by the door!" I said, not wanting Daisy to open the door now. "Who has their own copies of the keys?"

"Mistresses and the matrons I should imagine," Daisy said, "these ones on the hooks are probably in case of a fire."

"So it's an adult sneaking about?" I asked.

Daisy listened against the door again. Before I could protest, she shoved the key into the lock, turned it and yanked the door open.

The hallway was empty. I breathed out such a big sigh of relief that it made my legs shake.

"Come on. Whoever it is will probably suspect a girl in North Tower so we need to be quick." Daisy took my hand and tugged me inside the school. She locked up and put the key back. We snuck along the corridor on the very tiptoes of our slippers, trying to make as little noise as possible.

Once outside, we sprinted across to West Tower and got that door open in record time. Daisy put the key back and we took off our slippers and held them so we could move quicker.

Everything felt much safer once we were back in the dorms. Beanie mumbled and turned over but the others didn't stir at our arrival. The adrenaline wore off and I started to shiver. 

"Could I sleep in your bed tonight?" I asked Daisy, knowing that she would likely scoff and tell me I was being rather silly.

"Oh Watson," Daisy sighed, "I suppose you can, if it'll keep the nightmares away."

It didn't escape my attention though that when I clambered into Daisy's bed with her, it was her that grabbed my hand first and gave it a quick, tight squeeze. 


	16. Classroom Outbursts and Most Likely Scenarios (MT)

The next day came with no news about Francine. The police had searched for all of the previous day and long into the night without any success and that was all anyone except the teachers knew. The teachers had decided to try and keep the lessons going as usual, though that was meeting with varying degrees of success per form and per teacher. The third formers and the Deepdean girls were sat outside on the grass during lunch break, talking about what could have happened to Francine.

"That's Francine's parents, poor things," Jean said as they saw Miss Grayling walking with a man and woman, both of whom had pale, strained expressions. "This must be dreadful for them."

"How far away does Francine live?" Daisy asked. "If she has tried to run home we should calculate how long realistically that would take."

"I don't know. Darrell?" Alicia asked.

"She lives..." Darrell's brow furrowed in concentration. "Just outside of Swindon I think".

Daisy frowned. "So that would be, wait a moment—"

"Just over 200 miles," Irene said, "how quickly do people walk?"

"A couple of miles an hour?" Alicia offered.

"Then let's say somewhere between 67 and 100 hours," Irene said. "I don't think she would be able to walk all the way home."

"Not without somewhere to stay along the way, no." Daisy tapped her forefinger against her lips. "Does she have family closer by?"

A few of the girls turned to look at Darrell again and she sighed. "How would I know that? I'm not an address book for the entire lacrosse team."

"Alright, grumpy," Alicia said, "someone woke up on the wrong side of bed again."

"I'm just not looking forward to French," Darrell muttered, yanking some tufts of grass out and letting them flutter back to the ground.

The bell for lesson rang at that moment and the girls got up and made their way to class. Truthfully, none of them were looking forward to French. Mam'zelle Beaufort was turning out to be a much stricter teacher than Mam'zelle Rougier, and far more unpleasant. She had given a number of girls quite serious dressing-downs for behaviour in class or failing to submit work to her standard and throughout the entire school there were murmurs about her having a particular dislike for certain students. In the third form, that student was Darrell.

"Did you finish your prep?" Sally whispered, sitting down beside Darrell. Darrell nodded and took her French book out, she had slogged over the French prep the previous evening until she was almost certain there were no mistakes.

Mam'zelle Beaufort swept around the room gathering up the prep books and then pointed to the questions on the board.

" _Commencez par ceci_ ," she said, putting the books down on her desk to mark, "Mary-Lou, _ici_."

Mary-Lou went up to the desk and went through her prep with Mam'zelle. In the second form, Mary-Lou had a French girl stay with her and her family for the summer holidays and she had stayed in touch by letter. As a result, Mary-Lou was almost as fluent in French as she was in English now and her prep review went without incident. Alicia went next and she too managed to avoid criticism. Belinda and Irene both received a few sharp words but nothing more than than; Irene pulled an exaggerated relieved expression as she returned to her desk.

"Gwendoline," Mam'zelle called.

Gwen approached the desk much like one might approach a dangerous animal and held her breath as Mam'zelle reviewed her work. Mam'zelle pointed out some mistakes but, thanks to Mary-Lou's help the previous evening, Gwen was able to walk away from the desk with only a couple of stern words. There was a long pause as Mam'zelle reviewed the next batch of books before she called the next girl up.

"Darrell."

Darrell's heart sank and she swallowed the lump in her throat as she approached the desk.

"What do you call this?" Mam'zelle demanded.

Darrell looked over the work and tried to think of a polite way to say she didn't know what Mam'zelle meant.

"I don't understand, Mam'zelle," Darrell said eventually.

Mam'zelle pushed one of the other open books, Sally's, forward and laid the two books side-by-side. "What do you see?"

Darrell looked between the two books. Sally's work was a bit neater than hers and Darrell winced when she saw a mistake that she had made which Sally hadn't but besides that, she couldn't see anything.

"Did you think I wouldn't realise that you copied your friend's work?" Mam'zelle asked.

Darrell felt a hot spark in her chest at the accusation and the flame of her temper quickly warmed her neck and her cheeks, she would be going red as well and no doubt Mam'zelle would take that as a sign of guilt. "I did the work by myself, Mam'zelle."

"Given the standard of work I've seen so far from you, I very much doubt that." Mam'zelle wrote a comment saying as much next to Darrell's work. "I will set you a new piece of prep and you'll complete it for me by tomorrow."

"I didn't copy anyone's work."

"Take your book." Mam'zelle held the book out to her. "I shall have a word with your friend too, to make sure she doesn't do it for you this time."

"She didn't do it last time!" Darrell regretted losing her temper mere seconds after her hand slammed down on Mam'zelle's desk. The slap of her palm against the wood bounced off the walls and around the silent room. Everyone went deathly still breath, including Darrell, as Mam'zelle stood up.

"How _dare_ you." Mam'zelle lowered her voice, which was even more menacing than if she had shouted. "Detention, this evening. You will not behave like this in my class. Get back to your seat, now."

Darrell took her book and went back to her seat, her vision starting to swim with angry tears. She half-wanted to grab her chair and fling it with all her might, feeling that if she was going to be punished then she might as well completely deserve the punishment. Somehow she choked down her anger, sat down, and put her prep book on her desk. Sally put a hand on her arm, a welcome gesture that only lasted a second because Mam'zelle called Sally up next.

The rest of the lesson went by as quietly as the grave and they were all dreadfully relieved when the bell went. Darrell immediately walked off to be by herself.

"Not going after her?" Alicia asked.

"She'll need a few minutes to herself," Sally said hesitantly. Even she was a little unsure how to approach this particular bout of Darrell's temper. Darrell hadn't shouted at a teacher before and Sally had been so focused on her own work, she hadn't the slightest idea what had prompted this flash of temper.

"She's quite the hothead isn't she?" Kitty commented. "I've never seen a girl raise her voice at a mistress before. At Deepdean she'd have gotten a clip around the ear for that. I once fell asleep at my desk and woke up to the teacher yanking my ear and screaming at me."

As the conversation moved on, Sally's preoccupation from the previous day returned. The others were just shrugging this off as another one of Darrell's outbursts. It was understandable, Darrell's temper was both well known and shocking to most of the school; after all it simply wasn't proper for a girl to blow up like Darrell did. This seemed different though. Sally sighed quietly to herself and resolved to try and find out what was going on with her friend.

That turned out to be easier said than done. Darrell was withdrawn and sullen for the rest of the day. Thankfully, the third formers had Art and Sewing that afternoon so neither were lessons requiring much verbal contribution and Darrell avoided being spoken to by any other mistress for her demeanour. Sally didn't have much luck asking the girls who sat near the front of class either, none of them could shed any light on what had set all of this in motion.

After supper, Darrell was to go straight to Mam'zelle and Sally caught her before she left. 

"I know it's hard but please do try not to get riled up again, she'll only give you another detention," Sally said gently.

"Brilliant, I hadn't thought of that," Darrell snapped and the sarcasm made Sally flinch. Darrell looked guilty immediately.

"I'm sorry, ignore me. I'm being an idiot," Darrell said, "I'll try my best. I promise."

Sally wasn't entirely reassured though, it wasn't Darrell's lack of trying or lack of good intentions that led to her losing her temper and Sally could only hope that, by some miracle, Darrell would avoid an even worse punishment. On her way back to the common room, Sally came across Daisy and Hazel in the corridor. Daisy immediately clamped her lips shut while Hazel tried her best to look as though they weren't doing anything unusual.

"How's Darrell?" Hazel asked.

Sally didn't know how to answer that so she avoided the question by asking one of her own. "Are you coming to the common room?"

"I suppose we could," Daisy said. Sally wasn't sure what to make of Daisy Wells and she was usually quite adept at reading people, if not always completely sure how to deal with all of them. Daisy always seemed as though she was playing some kind of charade with them all.

"We were wondering," Hazel said carefully, "how would Francine have gotten out of school? Surely they lock up the school at night?"

"They keys are by the doors," Sally said, "the teachers are concerned with keeping people out, not locking us in. I rather think they know we sneak out for the occasional midnight feast."

"Rule breaking? Surely not." Daisy smirked and Sally felt small, like a first or second former being mocked.

"I wonder what she would have done if the key wasn't there," Hazel said.

"If she was so determined to leave, she would have found another key. There's rather a lot of them about," Sally said.

"Really?" The way Hazel and Daisy looked at each other made Sally stop walking.

"What are you two up to? Are you really investigating?"

Hazel had the decency to blush a little but Daisy just looked her straight in the face and said, "Of course we are, the more people helping the sooner she'll be found. We do have experience with this sort of thing."

Something about Daisy's gaze was so intense and invasive that Sally had to look away, it was as though Daisy were trying to see into her very thoughts.

"Darrell did tell me about the murders you helped solve. I suppose it couldn't hurt..." Sally conceded. Darrell had been awfully excited when she filled Sally in on the various crime solving adventures accredited to the two girls from Deepdean and, in a way, it made Sally wish that she could ever do something to make Darrell react that way.

"Don't go telling the whole form now, will you?" Daisy said firmly and Sally shook her head. She'd tell Darrell, of course, but she was hardly in a rush to give Alicia anymore reason to interfere with anything.

So when they got back to the common room, she let Daisy change the subject and soon there were tales of your usual schoolgirl misadventures being passed around. Daisy brought up the topic of midnight feasts and Sally could practically see her taking mental notes when Alicia regaled them with how one of the fourth form girls the previous year had snuck into Miss Carton's room and plucked the keys from her desk. Then had the audacity to drop them outside the West Tower Matron's office so she returned them on their behalf.

The stories were so entertaining that even Sally found herself losing track of time and it was only when she happened to glance at the clock that she realised Darrell's detention should have finished half an hour earlier. Sally slipped out of the common room and went down to the classrooms. Surely Mam'zelle wouldn't still have her there. It was getting close to bedtime after all. The lights in the classroom were all off and there wasn't a sound from inside.

Sally went back on herself and ran up to the dorms, thinking that perhaps Darrell had gotten upset and didn't want anyone to see her. Sally quietly pushed the door open, poked her head into the dorm and frowned for curled up under the covers in her bed was Darrell. Sally leant against the door and toyed with what to do next. Perhaps Mam'zelle had sent her to bed early as part of her punishment and Mam'zelle wouldn't be too happy if Sally barged in.

Then again, perhaps Darrell _had_ been unhappy after the detention and rather than see the others had wanted to be by herself. In which case, she wouldn't want Sally coming in and making her feel uncomfortable. Sally closed the door and went back down to the common room, giving a vague explanation of Darrell not wanting company and ignoring the way Daisy looked pointedly at her.

"What do you suppose they'll do if they _don't_ find Francine?" Mary-Lou asked suddenly.

No-one quite knew how to answer Mary-Lou's question and the jaunty music from the record player seemed terribly out-of-place bubbling over the common room. Daphne lent across and turned it down to a low murmur.

"That depends what else they find," Hazel said eventually, sharing a glance with Daisy that seemed to involve all kinds of unspoken exchanges in a matter of seconds. "They might find evidence of _what_ happened to her. That will affect what happens next."

"Look, she's run away and they'll find her soon enough, just you wait and see," Jean said hurriedly as Mary-Lou's face went ash grey at Hazel's words.

"Could she be dead?" Mary-Lou asked, the slightest tremble in her voice.

Hazel just looked down at her hands but they all knew what it was she didn't want to say. Daphne put her arm around Mary-Lou's shoulder. Jean fumbled for something to say to quieten the disturbed whispers which started between some of the other girls.

"Isn't her being" — Sally swallowed before saying the word — "dead quite low down in terms of likelihood?"

Daisy sat forward on the edge of the cushion. "Well, yes. Obviously Hazel and I have come across rather a lot of dead bodies but they are quite minimal when taken in context."

Alicia muttered something about most school girls never coming across any bodies but Sally ignored her and nodded for Daisy to continue.

"Running away is more likely, playing a stupid prank is more likely, kidnapping is more likey. Ow! Hazel!" Daisy rubbed her ribs where Hazel had just elbowed her quite hard.

"Kidnapping?" Alicia asked "Who would kidnap a school girl?"

"Oh, you'd be surprised," Daisy said.

"The point is," Sally said, feeling as though they were about to go marvelously off-track once again, "that there are much more likely possibilities for Francine being missing than her being dead? Right?"

"I suppose," Daisy agreed.

Glancing at Mary-Lou's still ashen face, Sally wasn't entirely sure that she had made the situation any better at all.


	17. Limitations of Paper Cup Telephones (MMU)

As I got dressed, I began to wonder if it was possible that Francine had never actually left school and was instead hiding away in some unknown hidden compartment in the school — old schools likes this often had them — and was sneaking out to ransack the kitchen after hours. Daisy and I had scoured the entire field the previous day for any sign that a school girl had gone that way recently. Nothing. No scraps of clothes caught on bramble, no foot prints, nothing. We hadn't even been able to find any evidence that the mystery woman — or girl, I suppose, some of the sixth formers were quite big — had been in the field and we _knew_ she had.

"The police are here early," Daisy called from where she was watching out of the window. "I'll bet they're going straight to Miss Grayling's office."

We still hadn't told an adult what we had heard that night. Daisy said that was fine since our story matched up with Gwen's and she had told someone. I wasn't entirely convinced that made our silence okay but, as with most times Daisy made a decision for the both of us, I didn't say anything.

"If only there was a way to listen in on what they're saying," Daisy said.

The bell for breakfast rang and Daisy looked so forlorn about not being about to think of a way to spy on Miss Grayling and the police that I couldn't help but laugh. I then immediately felt guilty because there was still a missing girl and it didn't seem right to laugh about anything.

"The police are back," was Daisy's morning greeting to the third formers at breakfast.

"We saw," Alicia said, "I was trying to think of a way to find out what the teachers all know but I've drawn a blank. You?"

"It's probably too dangerous to climb up and listen from outside her window," Daisy said.

"Yes. Far too dangerous." Jean gave Daisy and Alicia a firm look one after the other, her eyes narrowing at the innocent expressions she got back.

Before anyone could say anything else, Miss Grayling strode into the hall flanked by two police. All of our heads turned at once and followed her path to the front of the hall. Miss Grayling's face was pale and gaunt, making her look much older than she had done when I first saw her. I suppose a missing girl might do that to a headteacher.

"Good morning girls." Miss Grayling's voice seemed to be the only sound in the hall, I was sure girls were holding their breath to hear what was to come. "Unfortunately, during the night another girl has left school grounds. All lessons are cancelled for today while the teachers and I work with the police to get to the bottom of this."

"Who is it?" Alicia whispered, trying to look around the room for signs of anyone missing.

"How did we not hear anything?" Daisy's voice, though soft, was so close to my ear that it made me jump. I didn't have an answer for her.

"We will be starting by interviewing every girl in the second form. I would hope that any girl who knows _anything_ about what is going on, will take this opportunity to be forthright and honest." Miss Grayling looked around the room and I felt as though, when her eyes passed over me, that she was looking right inside my mind to see if I knew anything. I quickly decided I wouldn't tell Daisy about that particular thought.

"She thinks that this is a prank," Alicia said when a slow murmur finally returned to the hall as girls whispered to one another. "Is it another North Tower girl? Darrell, go ask Kate."

"I'm not going to ask anyone, we'll find out soon enough," Darrell said.

Daisy caught my eye and I knew immediately she didn't think this was some ridiculous prank. Once you've worked as closely with someone as I have Daisy, you can communicate an awful lot without the need for words. My stomach sank and I crossed my fingers in my lap, I so hoped that this was just two little shrimps being terribly silly and they'd be dragged back by their ears and given a proper rollicking.

Once we were dismissed from the hall, no-one seemed to know where exactly we were to go. Down the corridor, police and teachers were directing second formers into the classrooms to be interviewed.

"I wish we could find some way to listen in on those interviews," Daisy said with a sigh, staring down the corridor. "I wonder..."

Daisy darted off to the door to outside and peered out, then returned with a scowl on her face. "Bother, there are teachers outside. No chance of listening at the windows then."

"I suspect they anticipated that _some people_ ," — Jean glanced at Alicia — "might try and listen in."

"What about the cups on the string?" Alicia asked, turning to Darrell, "you remember? Sunita showed us when she was here. I never expected them to work but they did. We could set one up between interviews and tape the string to the wall so it's not seen."

"Even if we got inside one of the rooms," Darrell said, "for that to work you would have to ask the police to hold the other cup. Or dangle it from the ceiling right in front of them. You might as well just stroll in and ask what's happening. That's as likely to work."

"Alright, when you put it like _that_..." Alicia grumbled.

I pulled Daisy by the elbow and stepped away from the group a few paces. "We should tell them what we've learnt."

Daisy wrinkled her nose in displeasure at the idea. I fixed her with what I hoped was my sternest look.

"We are in unknown territory and we have always, in the past, made use of local knowledge. We must do the same now," I said.

I could Daisy wavering and I took my opportunity. I turned and addressed the Malory Towers girls. "We need to discuss something with you all. Can we go up to your common room?"

Jean sighed and looked between me, Daisy, and then Alicia as though she knew that from here on out her job as head of the form was about to become exponentially more difficult. It probably was, given our track record for the sorts of things which tend to happen when we're investigating a case. Still, she led us all back up to the common room without comment.

Daisy and I stood at the front of the room while everyone found somewhere to sit. As soon as they were quiet, Daisy took charge again.

"I just want to make it clear that in doing this, we are not inviting you to be a part of the Detective's Society," Daisy said firmly, "because, quite frankly, there are too many of you and I've already been _convinced_ to add more than enough members already. So you shall have to form your own group. For now, you can assist us."

"What are you blabbering about?" Alicia asked.

"As some of you already know, Hazel and I have been investigating Francine's disappearance," Daisy said, "what Hazel has proposed is that you will assist us in our investigations."

"Some of us already know? Who? I was joking when I said you two would be looking into it," Alicia said.

"Gwen and Sally learnt through necessity," Daisy said.

"You have to be _kidding me_!" Alicia protested. "You told those two? Out of everyone you could have confided in?"

"Oh do shut up, Alicia." Jean pressed one hand to her forehead and took a deep breath. "What exactly have you investigated so far?"

Daisy and I gave them a quick update. When Gwen explained how she had come to be involved, I swore she grew about a foot with the pride of having some information that no-one else did. Alicia wasn't pleased in the slightest of being left out of the investigation and I must admit, I was surprised she hadn't done her own investigating. The silence after we finished dragged on for a few seconds before anyone spoke.

"So really, you've not found all that much?" Bill asked. Bill hadn't said much at all in the time since we'd been at Malory Towers but somehow it seemed fitting to her laconic nature that the one thing she had said to us directly was such a concise — and slightly embarrassing — assessment of our investigation.

"Investigations take time, especially when you're in unfamiliar territory," Daisy said defensively.

"Plus, all their other cases had a dead body which provided more evidence. Even if the body did disappear for part of the investigation on occasion," Lavinia chipped in, slightly unhelpfully.

Mary-Lou went awfully pale and some of the other girls shared uneasy glances over whether the teachers might be wrong and all of this was far more serious than they had originally thought.

"Before we discuss theories, we should start our case book." Daisy glanced at me. I took the hint and said I would go and get it.

I hurried over to West Tower as quickly as I could, passing a few tearful shrimps along the way. Once I got to the dorm, I grabbed the case book from my trunk, and headed back to North Tower. I passed the same group of first and second formers and decided to chance whether they'd talk to me. As I had expected, they didn't say much to me, but I did learn that it was a girl called Amelia Collins who had gone missing so I hurried back to the North Tower common room with my casebook and that piece of information.

"It's Amelia Collins who's missing," I said when I returned to the common room.

"That's odd," Darrell said with a frown. "She's from South Tower but she's on the lacrosse team too."

"We'll add that into the casebook. It might be important. This is quite exciting, Hazel. We've never had a multiple missing person case before. Do you suppose we might need to change up our usual approach?" Daisy asked.

"Let me get it started first," I said and I knelt down and put the casebook on the table.

I had never written any part of my case book with such an audience and I was grateful that I was at the front of the room rather than surrounded by them. Not that it made the silence anymore comfortable.

_The Case of the Missing Schoolgirls_

_An Investigation by the Wells and Wong Detective Society, with assistance from the Malory Towers Third Formers_

_Written by Hazel Wong_

_(Detective Society Vice-President and Secretary), aged almost 15._

"You're right," I said, tapping my pen against my lip, "we don't have any suspects to put because we're not even sure someone else is involved."

"Apart from your mystery person wandering around at night," Alicia pointed out.

"Maybe we should lay this one out like the Junior Pinkertons do?" I suggested.

It looked as though the very idea pained Daisy. First she had been forced to collaborate with far more people than she would have liked and now her case book was going to have be lain out in the way her rivals — her opinion, not mine — wrote theirs.

"Yes," the admission was strangled, "I suppose that is our best approach. Put down every unusual occurrence, even if it doesn't seem relevant. Put a star by what we think is surely about the missing girls."

I did just that, writing out the little we knew so far with prompts and suggestions from other girls.

_What We Know_

_— Miss Parker is pretending not to know anyone from Deepdean._

_— Miss Parker received a mysterious note from persons unknown, it appeared to upset her and she tore it up._

_— Mam'zelle Beaufort heard of and applied for the French teacher post very quickly. She seems to have it in for some students more than others._

_— The lower forms lacrosse team played unusually poorly._

_— Francine (first former, North Tower) went missing.*_

_— Daisy and Hazel saw someone sneaking around outside at night. They returned to Malory Towers.*_

_— Amelia (second former, South Tower) went missing.*_

_What Does This Mean?_

_— Miss Parker does not want to interact with anyone from Deepdean. It cannot be to pretend she didn't go there as she would surely know that she would be recognised. Why is she doing it?_

_— Someone is writing to Miss Parker and she does not like the contents. Who is writing to her and what are they saying? Who is Beatrice?_

_— Somehow Mam'zelle Beaufort heard about the job opening within hours of the school looking for another French teacher. Who told her? Why is she targeting some students over others?_

_— Both missing girls are linked by the lacrosse team and both played in the terrible game. Did the poor lacrosse game play have anything to do with why two girls from the team have gone missing?*_

_— Someone else was out of school the night Hazel and Daisy were investigating. Based on reconstruction, this person came back from the same way it is likely that Francine went. Who is this person and why were they outside?*_

"I do think we should make a note about potential suspects though," Daisy said. "Particularly as, it must be said, when something as sudden and unexpected as this occurs, newer faces should be closely scrutinised for involvement. Put down Mam'zelle Beaufort and Mr Gregory. And the mystery person as a separate person for now."

I wrote their names down. She did have a point that we shouldn't completely neglect the possibility of third party involvement.

"Why would we investigate them?" Jean asked.

"It makes sense, doesn't it?" Alicia jumped in. "If the girls haven't run away then someone else is involved and since nothing like this has happened at Malory Towers before, it makes sense that it's more likely to be one of the new teachers who are involved."

" _Or_ someone using their arrival as convenient cover for their plan", Daisy said. 

"Well, _you're_ all new. Should we investigate you?", Alicia asked.

"Don't be ridiculous. That sort of thinking is why Deepdean has a Detective's Society and Malory Towers doesn't", Daisy said sharply. 

"You two" — Alicia pointed at Daisy and I — "have been at the scene of so many crimes that any investigator would be remiss to just take you at your word that you're not involved."

Daisy went rather pink in the cheek and for a glorious moment, I wondered if she were going to stamp her foot or do something equally childish. But of course, Daisy composed herself and drew herself up to her full height with minimal fluster. 

"Very well, _obviously_ Hazel and I know we're not criminals but I concede that you all wouldn't know that. So of course it makes sense for you to waste valuable time ruling us out", Daisy said. 

Alicia grinned broadly at Daisy's words whilst some of the other girls giggled at the exchange. I had to hide my mouth behind her hand so Daisy didn't see me smile.

"Now is not the time to make foolish jokes," Daisy realised Alicia was pulling her leg but she wasn't too sharp as I think she realised, as I had, that Alicia had done it to ease some of the tension in the room.

"Does anyone have anything to add about the two girls or the case?" Daisy asked.

"I still think it's two second formers playing a daft prank," Jean said. "There's simply no reason to assume anyone else is involved."

"Unless someone has particularly strong views about poor lacrosse playing," Alicia said.

"Then we need to see what we can find out about the two girls, what links them other than lacrosse, and see if we can narrow down whether this is silliness or something more serious," Daisy said. "Hazel. Plan of action!"

_Plan of Action_

  1. _Find out if Francine and Amelia were good friends, if so is it possible that this is a silly prank._
  2. _Find out if there are other links or similarities between Francine and Amelia AND do any other girls share the same similarities._
  3. _Find out what the first and second formers have told the police. May need to interrogate them ourselves._
  4. _Investigate South Tower for the route Amelia may have taken out of school._
  5. _Investigate the same route France probably took, look for evidence that may not yet have been trampled._
  6. _Speak to the entire lower form lacrosse team and find out if anything odd has happened._



"That shall do for now," Daisy said with a pert nod, "now we just need to divide up the tasks."

"Like you did when your assistants quizzed us on Miss Parker?" Alicia asked.

"We're not assistants!" Lavinia protested. "We're detectives."

"My apologies," Alicia didn't sound sorry in the least bit. "Shall we aim to be a little more subtle than your efforts were?"

Before Daisy, or Lavinia, could get into an argument with Alicia, I took over the unraveling meeting.

"What's important is we divide up tasks," I said, "so let's do that and then get started. If they didn't run away, two girls are missing. Remember?"

As everyone settled down, suitably chastised, I began the unenviable tasks of dividing up our to-do list. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> NB: Sunita was a character from the Malory Towers book released in 2019, 'New Class at Malory Towers'.
> 
> And for anyone interested:
> 
> Every year, still_lycoris runs the 12 Days of Christmas fic challenge on both Dreamwidth and Livejournal, with most of the authors posting their fics on AO3. To join in the fun and games (and keep me company, I like fics, even from fandoms I know absolutely nothing about) check out https://12dayschristmas.dreamwidth.org for details. Write one or two fics for the prompts that catch your eye, write one fic for each day, or drive yourself bananas like myself and others often do and try to hit all 78 fics!
> 
> I look forward to whatever anyone comes up with :)


	18. A Multitude of Questioning gets Underway (MT)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To everyone who is reading this, thank you for your patience. After the chaos of the 12 Days of Christmas Challenge, it's an adjustment returning to all my long-fics (there's been a lot of re-reading and going "Why was I doing that? I did **what** to this character? Where are my notes...")
> 
> Anyway, I hope you continue to enjoy it :)

Before Hazel got any further, there was a knock at the door followed by a sixth former opening the door and strolling in. "Molly is going to run some sports sessions to keep some of you occupied. There'll be tennis and lacrosse if anyone wants to come down. Darrell?"

"Sure. I just need to get changed," Darrell said.

When no-one else took up the offer, the sixth former left and closed the door behind herself. Darrell jumped up from the sofa and headed to the door.

"Are you really going to play lacrosse when we've got investigating to do?" Alicia asked in disbelief.

"Yes, because there's plenty of you to run around investigating and I need to go and clear my head," Darrell said. And with that, she was gone.

"What is _her_ problem?" Alicia asked no-one in particular.

"Probably the fact that, out of all of us, she's the only one who knew Francine and Amelia especially well. They all go to every practice together, remember?" Sally pointed out.

"I suppose. She does wear her heart on her sleeve, probably for the best if she runs off some of her nerves. We might need her to help interrogate the lacrosse team," Alicia agreed.

Hazel divided them up into groups to track down second formers and find out what they could about Amelia and Francine to start trying to address the first three action points on their list. Apart from Daisy, Hazel, and Alicia. They were going to try and find out what the police knew and that meant trying to snoop on teachers' conversations. Daisy had wanted to keep it just between her and Hazel but at the first mention of the activity, Alicia insisted on joining them. Given the pressing nature of the investigation, Hazel convinced Daisy to let Alicia go along.

"So, what's your next plan?" Alicia asked. "Follow teachers around and hope they give away some sort of clue?"

"No, of course not," Daisy said scornfully, "we must pinpoint which teacher is most likely to gossip and track them down."

"I can do you one better..." Alicia said, an idea coming to her. "Can either of you put on tears?"

-

"It seems terribly unfair that just _Alicia_ gets to go with Daisy and Hazel, why they didn't even confide in her initially," Gwen said.

"It seems terribly unfair that we got lumped with you," Belinda muttered under her breath. Sally gave her a gentle nudge in the side with her elbow.

"Working with Daisy isn't all it's cracked up to be, believe you me," Kitty said. "Count yourself lucky that we've got a break from her. Everything must be done Daisy's way or else, it's enough to drive a girl to distraction."

Gwen snorted. "Well then, that should be a sight to behold. Alicia's much the same."

"Gwen..." Sally didn't like all the nastiness that was seeping through. She knew it was because they were all on edge about Francine and Amelia but that didn't make her feel any more comfortable about it all.

"Well, it's true," Gwen said with a sniff but she didn't expand on her comment.

"Say, there are some of the South Tower girls, let's go talk to them," Belinda said.

"Hallo kids," Belinda greeted with a grin, "heard you all got hauled in to talk to the police. What was it like?"

One of the girls stifled a sob and quickly dabbed her eyes with a handkerchief, just as quickly her eyes refilled with tears. Another girl had red around her eyes, no doubt courtesy of her own tears.

"Why doesn't Gwen take you both to get some water and for some fresh air?" Sally suggested, looking at Gwen pointedly so that she wouldn't protest.

"Yes!" Kitty saw the look and jumped in. "I'll come with you as well, all this dreadful business. It's no wonder you're so upset. You can talk to us if you want."

Gwen's face lit up and she joined Kitty in comforting the girls, animated in a way neither Sally nor Belinda had seen from her before.

"I don't know why those two are so upset, they didn't know Francine and they hardly got along with Amelia," one of the other girls, Jenny, said derisively, "all these tears are so unnecessary. The police were fine."

Sally tried to keep her face steady, hoping that she didn't grimace at the sentiment. She had never understood why tears at school were thought so badly of. Even Darrell, whom most the school knew had emotions that seemed so big that she couldn't quite manage them from time-to-time, hated the thought of anyone seeing her crying. Sally could be sure that on the rare occasion that she couldn't find her friend it was because something had upset her. Ridiculous English standards of sensibility, it seemed, had to be upheld even when other forms of progress were being made, and Sally felt uncomfortable about how often she too went along with it.

"Francine and Amelia were on the lacrosse team together, did they get along?" Belinda asked. "If this is some daft prank they'll be in jolly big trouble when they're found."

"I don't think so, I mean they played together just fine but they were hardly friendly. Not many girls are close with girls from another Tower, after all," Jenny said. "The police asked if this was some joke but it doesn't seem like something Amelia would get involved in."

"And Amelia's only just moved onto the first team, so Francine didn't know her as well as you might think," Evelyn Cotsfield, Jenny's best friend, added, "Amelia was overjoyed about the lacrosse game. Well, until it happened, of course."

"Whyever did they all play so badly?" Sally asked, not entirely convinced that it was a pertinent detail but unable to contain her curiosity about the topic. Perhaps all this detecting business was starting to get to her too...

"I don't know but most the South Tower girls on the team were nervous wrecks before the game, never seen a thing like it," Jenny said. "Every time I called for the ball they fumbled it, every time I passed the ball they couldn't keep a hold of it. It was dreadful."

"And they couldn't even tell you what the matter was?" Belinda asked.

"Not a peep, it was like some sort of a case of the nerves came over most the team. I think it was me, Rebecca from West, and...little Mildred from North Tower, and that was it for those of us who managed to actually play. Hardly enough to turn a game around," Jenny explained.

Sally and Belinda said their goodbyes to the second formers after a few more questions about the police that revealed little more than the fact that Evelyn thought one of the police officers was _'a dreamboat'_ and that they asked all of them the same questions.

"That's odd, don't you think?" Belinda asked. "That so many girls were nervous about the match?"

"I suppose?" Sally said hesitantly. "Especially so much so that they can't play. I just can't imagine what caused it. Or why three of them were apparently unaffected. Or if it has anything to do with Francine and Amelia!"

"Exasperating, isn't it?" Belinda said, grinning at the sight of the usual stoic girl so flustered by her confusion. "So many people acting so oddly, it makes you think there's more than one mystery."

"Let's go find out whether Gwen and Kitty got anything out of the two girls they went off with," Sally said, "maybe they had more luck than we did."

-

"I'm starting to think we're not going to get very much out of these girls." Lavinia leant against the wall with a sigh. "If they're not crying, it's the same story over and over. We've found nothing that stands out about Francine or Amelia. All we've done it learnt that they're not particularly good friends so they probably haven't run away together."

"Which begs the question, what has happened?" Mavis said grimly.

"I'd really rather not think about that," Mary-Lou admitted.

"The problem is we've only got two data points," Irene said, "it's terribly difficult to draw meaningful conclusions from two points."

"You make it sound like we'd have a better time if more girls went missing," Lavina said.

"Well..." Irene saw the horrified look on Mary-Lou's face. "I don't _want_ more girls to disappear but the more data points, the easier it is to see similarities and differences."

Before anyone could respond to that, they were joined by Jean, Bill, Daphne and Beanie.

"Well, we've not found out much, how about you?" Daphne asked.

Once they compared notes, they were jointly disappointed at the fruits of their labour.

"I wonder what had upset Amelia last week?" Irene pointed to one of the notes Jean had written. "Did they not say?"

"No-one knew, I got the feeling Amelia was a little bit left out of her own form," Jean admitted, "none of them knew why she was upset."

"Still investigating?"

They turned around as Darrell walked up to them carrying her sports bag and looking a little muddy and windswept.

"If that's what you'd call it, we've not had much luck. Want to give us a hand?" Irene asked.

"I need to go up and shower first..." Darrell trailed off as she looked at the notes that Irene held out. "Well, that's peculiar. One of the first formers mentioned that they saw Francine crying last week but when she tried to talk to her, Francine nearly bit her head off. Seems odd that both of them would be so upset. Maybe that's something?"

"What if something awful has happened to them both and they've run away separately?" Mary-Lou suggested.

"I'm sure they wouldn't..." Jean trailed off, her voice losing certainty.

Darrell left them to go up to the dorms to shower and change, with a promise that she'd look at the rest of the notes when she got back to see if anything else she knew about the two girls might be of use.

"I sure hope the others are having more luck than we are..." Beanie sighed.

-

"My word, she is marvellous at this," Alicia said, gleefully watching the performance that Daisy was putting on for Mam'zelle Dupont and Miss Linnie, complete with a handkerchief to dab at her eyes at just the right moment to sell the act without overdoing it.

"A little too marvellous sometimes," Hazel agreed. "I do feel a bit uneasy that we're taking advantage of your teachers' good natures and kindness."

"Nonsense, people should learn to get their emotions under control if they want to get by in life." Alicia sounded so dismissive that Hazel didn't dare challenge her on it. Instead, she watched as Daisy accepted the comforting arm from Mam'zelle Dupont, nodding eagerly as she listened to what was being said.

When Daisy returned to them a minute later, her fake tears dried away as quick as you like. "Well, you were right. They're both far too easily duped for teachers."

"But did you _learn_ anything we didn't already know?" Alicia asked.

"Police have gotten nothing out of the girls but have ruled out the idea of it being a prank. They've moved onto the idea that something at school made them both run away, that Francine was the one with the nerve to do it first and her taking action gave Amelia the confidence to follow suit. They're thinking it was bullying from after the lacrosse match," Daisy said.

"That seems a bit drastic. It's not the first match Malory Towers has lost," Alicia said. "Anything else?"

"After they followed up on Gwen's information, they've dismissed it as Gwen just wanting attention. They couldn't find anything in the field or by the gate. Which makes me think—"

"They might not have bothered looking there today for more clues!" Hazel said. "If we're quick, we might get there before they trample the evidence."

"Precisely, so what I propose is we hurry on down there now and have a look around," Daisy said.

"We should check in with the others," Hazel said, "in case they've learnt something useful."

"That'll be a waste of time," Alicia said but before Hazel could reply, the matter was resolved for them.

"There you are!" Belinda's voice called from behind them and Alicia sighed when she saw most of the rest of the form weren't far behind.

"I suppose we had better have another meeting then and compare notes," Daisy said, shooting a suspicious look at Hazel as though she had somehow orchestrated this with perfect timing. "But make it quick because we have some more investigating to do."


	19. Theories and Apple-Pie Beds (MMU)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please click below or press 'End' on your keyboard for content warnings.

"Just in time," Alicia said as Darrell entered the common room. "Come on, quick, we need to go and do more exploring."

"Alright, alright..." Darrell let Alicia drag her over to the sofa without too much grumbling.

Daisy took over, of course, and I let her practically interrogate the others to find out what collectively we all knew. Initially disappointed that we hadn't much between us, she was intrigued to learn that both girls had been upset about something before they ran away.

"This was before the lacrosse game that Francine was crying?" Daisy asked Darrell.

"Yes, a few days before," Darrell said.

"So it couldn't have been bullying from losing the game," Daisy said. "Not that I'm surprised, of course. Police rarely do get to the right answer without multiple tries."

"And you always get there the first time, do you?" Lavinia muttered beside me. I struggled to keep a straight face as Daisy looked over at us with narrowed eyes. I wasn't sure if she had heard what Lavinia had said or just suspected that the murmurings were unflattering.

"The thing is," Darrell said, "while Amelia is quite sensitive, Francine truly isn't. Amelia was very teary when she first joined the lacrosse team, before she developed some self-confidence I mean, and even now she can sometimes feel so sorry for other people's misfortune that it upsets _her_ as well. Francine isn't like that. It would have to be something awful for her to get that upset and I think that's why no-one pried any further, in case something dreadful had happened and she couldn't bare discuss it."

"Interesting..." Daisy tapped her fingers against her lips as she paced. "So they _could_ still have run away."

"But even if they have run away, where have they gone?" I asked. "We worked out that Francine could hardly have run all the way home, where does Amelia live?"

"A town outside of Bristol so still too far to walk. What if they took a train? I know it's a trek to the station from here but that would be much easier to get to and they might have enough money to buy a ticket. I suppose the police have already thought on that though," Darrell said.

"Never presume anything when it comes to the police," Daisy said with a flourish. Kitty and I shared a grin.

"Matron has records of how much money each girl has declared. When we have larger amounts she looks after it and records how much she has given out," Gwen offered helpfully. "How much are train tickets?"

Alicia stared at Gwen in surprise, though I couldn't quite work out if it was because she was surprised at Gwen offering help, at her suggestion being a jolly good one, at her not knowing how much train tickets cost, or some mix of all three.

"It's what, a penny a mile?" Daphne asked.

"No more than that, it went up after the war, remember?" Irene said. "I suppose maybe they could have had enough money scurried away, I don't know much about their families."

"Right, then we have new avenues to explore," Daisy said firmly.

"We need to investigate the field before the police look that way," I reminded her, though I knew she wouldn't have forgotten.

"Indeed. And we shall need to try and find out about these records that Matron keeps, and also see if there's anything in the two dorms that might tell us more about whether the girls ran away." Daisy always was happiest when giving orders so I let her continue.

"Hazel, why don't you, Sally, and Darrell go investigate the South Tower dorms, see what you can find?" Daisy suggested. "Alicia and I will go down to the field."

"I'm coming too." Gwen insisted firmly and she got up and went to stand with Daisy before anyone could protest. I raised my eyebrows in surprise at us being divided up, especially given Daisy's reluctance to let Alicia accompany us earlier. Perhaps she had decided keeping Alicia close meant she could keep an eye on her.

"What are we to do while you're off investigating then?" Lavinia demanded.

"Lavinia, take some girls with you to try and get into Matron's office, get a look at this record book. Someone who can distract Matron would be good," Daisy said.

"Take Irene then, she drives Matron to total distraction without even trying," Belinda said, grinning broadly when Irene punched her in the arm.

"Some of you should also go and investigate the North Tower dorms, Kitty how about you take two girls and see what you can find. Then, with Hazel busy, maybe someone could take over writing up the case notes?" Daisy looked over to me to check. I almost said no, feeling all of a sudden very protective of the casebook. Then I thought about how I had been encouraging Daisy to let everyone else be involved and decided the least I could do was lead by example.

"Well, if you don't all mind, I'd rather like Mary-Lou to take over," I said, seeing a chance to boost Mary-Lou's confidence and give her something to focus on rather than sit and worry about what was going on. "If the rest of you could help her with the information but don't go piling too much on at once. It's awfully difficult to get everything written up properly if people bombard you with information."

Most of the girl seemed content with that so I ushered Darrell and Sally out of the common room while the others who had investigating to do went off to where they needed to be.

"That was good thinking, Mary-Lou was starting to fret about all this," Sally said.

"I remember how it felt during my first case, how terrified I was, so I know a little bit about what she's going through," I explained. "It's difficult when everyone else seems to just take everything in their stride."

"At least we haven't discovered any dead bodies," Darrell said, then grimaced, "yet..."

"Don't think like that," Sally said, "I'm sure it's nothing so awful as that."

"Maybe but it has to be pretty terrible for two girls to run away," Darrell replied. "That's if they have run away. Someone might very well have taken them."

"Let's focus on getting the evidence first," I said, "always follow the evidence. The more we have, the better our conclusions can be."

The rest of the walk to the South Tower was in silence. Darrell led the way to the South Tower second form dorms and listened at the door before nodding that it sounded quiet and opening it just enough to look inside.

"No-one's here, come on."

"Check the photographs on the bedside tables, let's find Amelia's bed," I said.

We fanned out and checked each bed one by one.

"Here it is," Sally called and we gathered around the bed.

"Alright, what exactly should we be looking for?" Darrell asked.

"I don't altogether know," I admitted, "I suppose we just need to look at everything and see what stands out."

Darrell and Sally were a bit reluctant to go rifling through Amelia's belongings but I reminded them that this was to help Amelia.

"Hmm." Sally looked disapproving when I glanced up at where she was looking down at the bed. She gestured to the bed when she saw me looking. "Apple-pie bed."

I knelt up from where I was looking through the trunk and saw the sheet folding, a frequently used tactic for girls that had upset the form in some way. Bullying, I would call it, but some of these English girls seemed to think it was simply a right of passage or a means of putting a girl who stepped out of line in her place. I was pleased to see, from Sally's expression, that she didn't seem to fall into those categories.

"It's barely untucked, I wonder if she tried to get into bed, realised what the others had done and it was the last straw?" Sally asked. "Did she ever mentioned being bullied?"

Darrell stopped looking through the drawers in the bedside table. "She did say once that Jenny was giving her a hard time. Molly saw something happening once on the field, too. She gave Jenny what-for and some sort of punishment."

I continued my search of the trunk as they talked and found a small purse, the edges starting to fray and the clasps worn and tarnished from use. It looked well-loved. I went to open it then decided I better have a witness, though I couldn't really say why. I suppose it was the unease of searching through another girl's belongings.

"Sally, could you come over here?" I asked.

Sally got up from where she had been looking under the bed and knelt beside me. I opened the purse and we looked inside. There were a few shillings and a single pound inside.

"I don't think Amelia would have left without all of her money," I said. I closed the purse back up and closed the trunk.

"Found anything?" I asked Darrell.

"Maybe..." Darrell was scrutinising a notepad, tilting it back and forth to the light. "This was hidden away at the bottom of her drawer along with this..."

Darrell handed over a crumpled piece of paper that had clearly been screwed up when Darrell had found it. It looked as though it might be the end of an essay of some sorts, though it would have to be a dreadful kind of essay because it was a disparaging piece of writing that had nasty things to say about Amelia herself.

"Weepy little cry-baby who..." Sally wrinkled her nose in disgust. "Whoever sent her this? That's _awful_."

"That's the strange part," Darrell said, closing the drawer. "That's Amelia's handwriting, I'm sure of it. See the funny little loop she does on her Ys and Gs? I remember another girl on the team saying that Mam'zelle Beaufort hated the way she wrote her letters. It seems to me like a ridiculous thing to get annoyed over but she is a dreadful ridiculous woman so I suppose it makes sense."

I raised my eyebrow at the vitriol that seeped into Darrell's voice for a moment and I caught Sally's eye purposefully. Sally frowned and pressed her lips together for a moment, then changed the subject. "And the notebook?"

"I wondered if there was something else she had written and there are imprints but they're difficult to see, unfortunately," Darrell said.

I jumped up. "Wait! I know how we can read it. Find me a pencil, would you?"

After a hurried search, Sally found a pencil and I smoothed the notepad out on top of Amelia's trunk and used the edge of the pencil to scribble across the page.

"That's amazing!" Darrell stared in amazement at the way the indentations became legible. "I'd never have thought something so simple would work like that."

"It's a bit faint in places but you can read it," I said.

We crowded around the paper and read the paragraphs. 

"This is..." I trailed off, confused by the writing. "Why would Amelia be writing an essay about why picking on others is wrong? Is that part of your schoolwork?"

"This is probably the punishment Molly set Jenny," Darrell said quietly. "Right after being pulled up for going after her, she went and did the same thing and made Amelia write her punishment out."

"Well, that would certainly explain why Amelia might run away," Sally said. "They've been making her life miserable."

"But that doesn't explain Francine," Darrell said.

"People hide a lot of unhappiness, maybe Francine did too," I suggested. "Do you think someone made Amelia write those awful things about herself?"

"Or maybe she really believes them because of everything that has happened," Sally said. "We need to tell a teacher about this."

"Let's go and see what the others found before we do that," I said, "best we tell them everything all at once."

I didn't want to pick up the notebook and crumpled paper, just thinking about the words on them, the meaning behind them made me feel a little sick. I had been picked on when I first started at Deepdean, English schoolgirls could be dreadfully cruel to anyone who they deemed "too different". 

But this was something else.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content Warning: Bullying.


	20. Gems of Evidence from a Muddy Scene (MT)

"Would you _slow down_ ," Gwen huffed as she struggled to keep up with Alicia and Daisy. 

Alicia had hoped that by keeping such a quick pace, she would have shaken off Gwen by now but alas, the other girl had demonstrated speed and persistence that Alicia truly hadn't realised her capable of. To make matters worse, Daisy took heed of Gwen's words and slowed her walk, giving Alicia little choice but to follow in kind.

"Gwen has a point. As much as I want to get to the scene, if we rush too much, we risk missing vital evidence," Daisy said.

Alicia thought that was hardly the point Gwen was making but if she were to start arguing otherwise, it would all end up seeming rather petty.

"What evidence will we be looking for?" Gwen asked, taking advantage of the slower pace to catch her breath.

Alicia pushed the door open so that they could step outside and follow the path around to the gate. She held it open behind her for the other two.

"There's no way to know until we see it," Daisy said, "footprints, scraps of clothing, dropped items, disturbances... Look for anything that seems out of place."

"What exciting lives you and Hazel lead," Gwen said, "and your families, they don't mind that you do this investigation?"

Daisy's easy stride became stiff for a few paces before she shrugged off the tension and answered. "My parents don't pay me too much mind. Hazel's father has never been _overjoyed_ with our work but I believe he is slowly coming around to the idea."

"Might I know your parents?" Gwen asked. "Perhaps our families move in the same circles."

Alicia rolled her eyes and waited for the inevitable reveal of well-known parents who were the talk of the nation and bonding over status. Except it never came.

"I don't know," — Daisy cleared her throat — "say, we should really start our search from here, if we only start right at the gate, we could miss something important."

Alicia couldn't help but look over at Gwen to see if she found the sudden reluctance to talk as peculiar as she did. Gwen raised an eyebrow in response. Well, for once it seemed that the two of them were indeed on the same wavelength. Alicia didn't really know too much about the most upper-class families in Britain. Oh there were plenty of girls at Malory Towers who were very well off, of course, and all of the girls, bar the ones who received scholarships to the school, at least came from solidly comfortable backgrounds, but their families generally were not the land-owning and title-receiving kind. Gwen was one of the exceptions and Alicia still couldn't completely work out why the Laceys had sent her to Malory Towers. All of which meant, Alicia had no idea who the Wellses were or why Daisy was so reluctant to discuss her family. If Gwen didn't know them, Alicia would have to seek out one of the other girls in the school whose family were accepted within those groups.

After all, Daisy and Hazel were more than happy digging into everyone else's secrets, they should only expect the same in kind.

"They haven't been here yet!" Daisy said gleefully. "Of course, I knew they wouldn't. Policemen can be dreadfully dull-witted about these sorts of things. Now spread out, move slowly, and keep a keen eye out for anything untoward."

Once they had finished searching around the gate, the three girls climbed one-by-one over it and widened their search throughout the field. After a good ten minutes of searching, Alicia took a sharp breath in when she spotted something bright amongst the grass. She bent down to gather it up and was immediately grateful that she hadn't called out that she had found something for it was only a piece of wrapping from a chocolate bar.

"Over here!" Daisy called. Alicia and Gwen hurried over to her.

"Look at these marks here," Daisy showed them some dents in the mud and they followed them for a few metres before they disappeared.

"Oh!" Gwen covered her mouth with her hand as she gasped and pointed.

Daisy crouched down and carefully picked up the shoe, similar to the ones Alicia and Gwen themselves wore, and peered inside. "There's no name written inside but it looks to be small enough to belong to a shrimp, doesn't it?"

Alicia began to make some connections as she looked back over the bumps in the soil. "Do you suppose these are someone kicking to break free from someone?"

"And their heels or toes made the dents as they fought. Indeed, it could be possible." Daisy turned the shoe in her hands and there was mud up the heel of the show. She held it into one of the dents but it was difficult to say whether it matched the impression perfectly or not.

"If Amelia was fighting to get away, she certainly didn't run away, did she?" Gwen asked the obvious question.

"No. She didn't." Daisy stood up and placed the shoe back where she had found it. "Let's keep going."

"Shouldn't we run and get a policeman?" Gwen asked. "This is real evidence of something awful, after all."

"Not until we've finished our investigation, we don't want them knowing more than us," Daisy said. "Now, if someone was dragging or pulling a girl along, where would they be headed?"

"Up there is a throughway to the road, they might have had a car parked up?" Alicia asked.

"Excellent, then stay vigilant with your observations as we head that way."

There was nothing else to be found in the field but the ground at the path between the hedges was soft with damp and someone had left some very clear footprints in the mud. Daisy instructed Alicia to draw out the shoe impressions while she and Gwen continued searching onto the road. Much as Alicia didn't appreciate being left behind, she begrudgingly admitted that she was likely the better drawer out of her and Gwen. Daisy and Gwen returned just as she finished drawing.

"There was definitely a car parked up in the layby recently," Daisy said, "there are fresh impressions. We should get a sketch of them too before we head back, just in case we come across a vehicle with similar treads."

"Won't there be lots of cars with the same tyres?" Alicia asked.

"Perhaps, but it's all the evidence we have so far and if we don't take a sketch, we shall be allowing the police evidence that we don't have access to," Daisy said.

Alicia followed them through to the road and into the layby where a set of tyre impressions sat neatly in the mud. She sketched out the impressions much as she had the shoes, rather wishing that they had dragged Belinda along as she would no doubt make a more accurate rendition of both the shoe print and the tyre marks. Perhaps this crime-solving business was better completed by thinking more carefully about matching people to their strengths. She handed off the notebook to Daisy once she was finished and Daisy nodded, happy enough with the drawings.

"I suppose we must inform a teacher or police officer of our findings," Daisy said with a sigh.

They made their way back to school along the road. Their morning of investigation had been so all-consuming that midday — and lunchtime — had rather crept up on them.

"Wherever have you three been?"

Alicia groaned as Miss Carlton strode towards them from where she had been stood near the entrance of the school. Why couldn't it have been one of the more easy-going teachers who had happened upon them.

"Miss, we've found something that I believe the police should know about!" Daisy jumped in, trying to use her charm even though Alicia could have told her it wasn't going to work on Miss Carlton.

"I see, another tall tale I presume," Miss Carlton eyed Gwen suspiciously. Alicia couldn't help but feel sorry — just a little bit — for the other girl when she blushed a furious shade of red underneath Miss Carlton's wilting gaze.

"We simply went for a stroll to clear our heads, I was terribly shaken up by all of these goings on you understand," Daisy talked quicker, "after all, it was hardly what I was expecting from an exchange trip. So Alicia and Gwen were kind enough to accompany me" — Alicia winced because there was no way Miss Carlton would believe that Alicia and Gwen would pal around together — "and we came across a girl's shoe up in the fields up there!"

Daisy's quick speech and the way she gestured so drastically behind herself towards the field seemed to distract Miss Carlton however and she stopped eyeing Alicia and Gwen so disbelievingly.

"Of course, we knew that we must come and find an adult straight away. Perhaps it's nothing but with two girls missing..." Daisy trailed off.

"Yes, yes. You've done the right thing," Miss Carlton said before Daisy could start up again. "Just up in that field there? Alright then, inside with you three and I shall find a police officer to inform."

Miss Carlton marched them to the main hall, where everything had been set up for lunch, and across to the third form table. None of the three dared step out of line and when she pointed to three empty chairs in a row, they sunk onto them without a peep.

"I thought she might haul us up in front of the Grayling," Alicia said, breathing a sigh of relief.

"You were all gone an age, tell us you found something," Belinda whispered, keeping her voice low enough that Mam'zelle Dupont wouldn't hear her.

"Footprints, a shoe, some tyre prints," Alicia said back, "we'll tell you about it after lunch. Any developments here?"

Belinda grinned back. "You could say that. Let's just say Irene is a wonderful method of distraction."

"I'm right here you know!" Irene said, but she didn't sound all too put out about the description.

"You three better get some food before lunch is over," Jean said, glancing at the clock.

As much as it pained all of them to not discuss the case, the girls forced themselves to have some lunch and not mention the investigating they had been doing. Mam'zelle seemed to take their silence to be sadness or worry about the two missing girls and didn't try to talk to any of them too much. Then just as lunch finished and the girls stood to tidy away their plates and cups, Miss Potts approached the third form table.

"Alicia. Gwendoline. Miss Wells."

Alicia's lips twitched at the formal use of Daisy's surname but she smoothed away her smile when Miss Potts shot her a stern look.

"With me, please." There was no doubt that Miss Potts expected her instruction to be followed immediately so the three girls handed off their cups and plates to other girls and followed Miss Potts in silence. Alicia groaned to herself as they followed Miss Potts up the stairs to her office. She had been far too quick in thinking they were in the clear. Now they all had to hope that Gwendoline would avoid spilling any secrets under Miss Potts' scrutiny and Alicia wasn't entirely confident about that.


End file.
